Nelly Korda Steers LPGA Away From Jay Monahan’s Nightmare, Avoids Scottie Scheffler’s Masters Misery

Dismal TV ratings and coverage woes have been haunting Jay Monahan for a while now. This was especially true during the first major of men’s golf, the Masters Tournament. The final round of the event saw a dip of 2o% in viewers as opposed to last year. Consequently, much blame came to reside on Scottie Scheffler for failing to rake in a proper audience. However, the same wasn’t the case for the LPGA Tour, as Nelly Korda, on the other hand, helped deny the women’s Tour of the disappointing situation.

A report was made public just hours ago by the publicity group for the NBC Sports Network, divulging the numbers for the recently ended tournament for women’s golf. What did it say? Well, the announcement revealed how the Chevron Championship, which Korda won, was the most-watched edition of the major since 2010.

Nelly Korda’s win becomes a popular one

The Sunday round of the first major of women’s golf on NBC and Peacock peaked between 6:30 PM and 6:45 PM, with a total of 1.9 million people watching Nelly Korda lift the trophy. Surely an increase when put side by side with the 1.54 million views that peaked last year. What’s more, the fourth day’s play averaged 936,000 viewers, which also came to be equal to the 2023 edition of the Chevron Championship, which saw Lilia Vu emerge victorious.

Meanwhile, the major at The Club at Carlton Woods drew a TAD (Total Audience Delivery) of 361,000 this year when Nelly Korda clinched her 5th straight win. This is, then again, 2% more than the complete coverage across Golf Channel or NBC which was marked at 354,000 TAD. Witnessing the golfer tie Nancy Lopez’s and Annika Sorenstam’s record might have been a crucial factor in raking in such figures.

The report was reshared by Flushing It and was done so while comparing it with the PGA Tour numbers. Notably, only 9.589 million people were interested in watching Scheffler claim his second Masters title, as opposed to 10.17 million in 2022 and 12.59 million in 2023. To top it all off, the 88th edition of the major at Augusta, as per reports, ranks the least-watched one since 1993.

An encouraging situation for the LPGA Tour, especially when it has been, since long back, suffering from poor coverage and numbers. But, one can’t help but wonder, was it truly Korda who pulled in that many people to watch the final round of the prestigious event?

Does Korda have a growing influence on women’s golf?

“I think I called her the Tiger Woods of the LPGA Tour at one point,” said an impressed Kevin Kisner after watching Nelly Korda play at the QBE Shootout. That’s not all. Many of her colleagues, including Rose Zhang, Lilia Vu, and even Stacy Lewis, expressed their belief in the athlete. The Solheim Cup skipper, especially, was very vocal about the 25-year-old’s influence on the sport.

“I would tell her to do as much extra stuff as you can for us. We got to continue to push our TV partners to help us get more coverage,” said Lewis when coming out candid regarding the issues related to broadcasting for the women’s circuit. Meanwhile, Zhang went ahead to dub her the “best” in the game at the moment, while Vu preferred the moniker, the ‘Caitlin Clark of the LPGA Tour.’ It appears there is some Korda magic in the air!