The 2025 Cognizant Classic will go into the history books, thanks to Jake Knapp! The 30-year-old’s outstanding performance in the first round helped him secure a 12-under par 59 in the 18 holes. That was not enough for him to go all the way through the tournament. But he did draw in a lot of golf fans to watch the action live. Knapp’s efforts, Jordan Spieth’s mishaps, and Rickie Fowler’s near miss to get a ticket to the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational helped the event gain an average of 2.15 million viewers on Sunday.

Unfortunately, none of the names above won the tournament. The 2025 Cognizant Classic Championship went to first-time winner, Joe Highsmith. Yet, Jay Monahan & Co. had a lot to celebrate. They have now had 5 consecutive events with high TV ratings. Things have seemingly gotten better after the horrid numbers they received in 2024. Missed it? The PGA Tour struggled with viewership last year, and early 2025 wasn’t much better with big names absent. But with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler back, the season’s heating up. Still, Jay Monahan & Co. shouldn’t celebrate too soon—ratings are up from 2024 but still lag behind 2022-23. An analyst just dropped that insight minutes ago.

Trusted golf reporter, Josh Carpenter tweeted, “NBC drew 2.15M viewers for Joe Highsmith’s win in the Cognizant Classic on Sunday. Last year’s finish was pushed to Monday due to rain, but taped coverage drew 1.45M viewers. Better comp is the prior two years: 2.38M (Chris Kirk) and 2.57M (Sepp Straka)”. The numbers reveal that the PGA Tour is still lagging behind what it was achieving a couple of years ago. Hence, a jump up from 1.45 million to 2.15 million shouldn’t be considered a win for them.

Carpenter himself also had the same opinion when someone asked him “Ratings up 5 weeks in a row!?”. He responded a few minutes later with “Technically, yes. But I don’t know that I’d really go down that road considering last year was washed out. Better comps are 2023 and 2022, which they’re down from”. This will be a big reality check for Jay Monahan & Co. as they were hoping for a big win soon.

Nonetheless, it’s evident that the PGA Tour viewership hasn’t gotten much better. But why did it fall in 2024 in the first place? Let’s focus on the first few events of the season.

Why did the PGA Tour’s viewership drop in early 2024?

It’s almost a mystery! Even the broadcast partners are unsure how to respond to the issue. But, the reason behind the low TV ratings for some of the events was far more justifiable. Take the 2024 Cognizant Classic as an example. The final round of the event was in jeopardy when dangerous weather caused a 3.5-hour delay. This led to the event being pushed to Monday. At this point, the frustration of the fans was understandable as many of them didn’t tune in on the extension to Monday, March 4, 2024.

The same thing happened in the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Aberg were anticipating a tough battle as they ended round 3 with a 1 point difference. But nature had other plans as it handed Clark the title by washing off the final day. The Pebble Beach Golf Links were soaked and completely unsafe to play professional golf. That led to Wyndham Clark winning the Signature event based on his score from 54 holes. This too led to a loss of viewership as more fans were expected to tune in for Sunday than the prior rounds of the event.

Having said that, do you think the PGA Tour will see a continued rise in viewership for the remainder of the 2025 season? Share your views in the comments section.