“Truly a dream come true. An amazing achievement,” said Aaron Rai after bagging his first-ever PGA Tour victory on August 11. The final round of the 2024 Wyndham Championship concluded on Sunday. Despite the continuous delay in the schedule due to Tropical Storm Debby and typically dark conditions during the ongoing event, Aaron Rai was the last man standing during Sunday’s 36-hole endurance test.

The 29-year-old went completely bogey-free for the ultimate round, grabbing a 6-under 64 to gain a two-stroke victory over Max Greyserman. His victory lacked the usual fanfare of past PGA Tour events. Since the past few months, the Jay Monahan league has been suffering viewership problems, and the Wyndham Championship was no different.

The ongoing rift between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has already divided the golf audience. Furthermore, the steep decline could be attributed to the fact that the final round of the Championship coincided with the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

NUCLR Golf took to their official X account a few hours ago and shared a report by Josh Carpenter, the Assistant Managing Editor, who covers golf for Sports Business Journal. According to that, the Wyndham Championship had a staggering dropdown of 1.438 million viewers on CBS for the ultimate round.

The Wyndham Championship last year also faced unruly weather conditions. Despite this, the viewership was notably higher, with approximately 1.671 million viewers tuning in to watch Lucas Glover, defeat Russell Henley with a two-stroke victory. In comparison to this year’s edition, which saw a viewership attendance of 1.438 million, which is almost 200K viewers fewer than the previous year.

The difference is significant. Additionally, the report grabbed much attention from the audience, and Aaron Rai’s victory was pretty much sidelined by the golf community. They were busy criticizing the PGA Tour’s dropping TRP.

The golf community blames the PGA Tour for the drop in viewership

The tweet was posted around 9 hours ago, and well, it has managed to already grab 42.6K views. This is, of course, nowhere close to the number of people who tuned in to watch Aaron Rai lift the trophy. However, one fan chose to sarcastically take a jibe at the low viewership by comparing the tweet’s view with it and said, “You mean less watched a PGA tournament than saw this tweet?”

However, one of them even pointed out that the Olympics were not on last year. The international event takes place in once every four years, making it an already amusing play to watch. Moreover, the PGA Tour’s favorites, Scottie Scheffler and Lydia Ko from the LPGA Tour, won the match at Le Golf National, so the closing ceremony was already a treat to the golf fans.

Taking to the division of audience in the PGA Tour event and, of course, the Olympics in Paris, one of them wrote, “Might have had something to with another event happening. It sure seems like the closing ceremonies for #Paris2024Olympics might have been a factor. Just saying. Btw, the golf broadcast was great.”

To add to the woes of the 2024 Wyndham Championship, Matt Kuchar had chosen not to continue his game on Sunday evening due to the prevailing darkness at the Sedgefield Country Club. His partners, Max Greyserman and Chad Ramey, voted to complete the round. As a result, Kuchar ended up being the only player to finish his round on Monday.

The drama did not appeal to the golf community; rather, he was criticized for the action. Moreover, this was also another added reason as to why the views dropped. A lot of the fans feel this move should not have entertained them, and it left them frustrated.

Taking to this, one of them mocked Kuchar’s action, stating that no one viewed the championship, as the winner was already declared, no matter what the score, and wrote, “And I can guarantee none of them wanted to see Matt Kuchar finish on Monday”.

While another, taking to the PGA Tour organizing committee that had to join Kuchar for a single-man match play on Monday, wrote, “Have we included the 7 people in attendance for Kuchar’s 3 shots on Monday?

In one year, viewership dropped by a whopping 12%, which is immensely concerning. Even Rory McIlroy addressed the situation in the past and stated, “If you look at the TV ratings of the PGA TOUR this year, they’re down 20 percent across the board. That’s a fifth,
that’s big.” Taking into account the massive difference, one of them sarcastically wrote, “200k is virtually nothing”.

What are your thoughts on the dropping TRP of the PGA Tour events? Let us know in the comments section below!