The Farmers Insurance Open has teed off at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. The fourth PGA Tour event of the season. Safe to say, has been exceptional as well. Young Swede Ludvig Aberg raced to the lead with 8 birdies and an eagle on the North Course. A rising star, indeed. However, there seemed to be one problem faced by the golfing fans in general. A rather persisting one.

While the event’s first round was ongoing, the PGA Tour repeatedly showed interviews, and performance highlights in their new, and costly studio. This led to frustration amongst the fans. The American Tour invested $50 million to build a new studio which is located next to the PGA Tour’s headquarters at the Ponte Vedra Beach. The studio is a 165,000-square-foot building that also houses the largest library of golfing content with more than 223,000 hours of golf-related videos at their disposal.

At the launch, the PGA Tour called Studios “a pivotal next step of golf content production in an ever-changing media landscape and one that will fuel exponential growth in the Tour.” It seems that are truly making the most of it now.

One X user was quick to point out the frustration, having missed some pivotal moments of Amateur Jackson Koivun’s phenomenal first round. He ended the day 1 at T18 with a score of 4 under. They complained about how they wanted to see less of Zach Johnson, but more of new and uprising faces in the field.

Safe to say, the PGA Tour is not doing itself any favors with the broadcast procedure they have in place. The dwindling viewership in golf should be cause for concern and the PGA Tour needs to address such issues at the earliest. The viewership has seen a 19% drop in 2024, averaging 2.2 million viewers for Sunday telecasts compared to the 2.7 million in 2023.

Fans blasted the 2024 Sentry for having too many commercials. It felt like the broadcast was all about the commercials, and not golf. At the 2023 Hero World Challenge, the broadcast focused almost entirely on Tiger Woods, leaving other players’ performances sidelined.

Several golfing fans felt the same way! And they did not hold back and let it know on social media.

PGA Tour broadcast comes under fire from the fans

One of the gems that has shined brightest in the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open was amateur golfer Jackson Koivun. The Auburn University student scored 4 brilliant 4 birdies during his time on the course scoring on par in the remaining 14 holes. The strong performance belied his age.  One fan was disappointed that he was not shown adequately on the broadcast, they wrote “So f*****g true. The lack of Koivun was disrespectful.” 

The broadcast was very detached from the real essence of the game. One user felt that the team needs to do a better job of understanding what viewers are tuning in to see and incorporate that into their feed. “Unreal lack of awareness. They simply don’t understand what people watching golf actually want.”

While the viewers are not against the interviews or the stories that are being shared, they would rather listen to them while watching the live golf that taking place. That is a much better trade-off compared to seeing two people just having a conversation inside a costly studio. This is not ‘My Dinner with Andre’, this is golf. “Yawnfest. Just play more golf shots and tell more stories from the course,” one fan tweeted Another fan expressed the sentiments of the viewers in a short sentence. “Show more, Golf!” the user said, and rightfully so!

Zach Johnson also managed to catch a few strays. His presence in the studio and sharing of his story was not well-received by the fans. “The less @ZachJohnsonPGA we have the better and I’m shocked that the Tour can’t recognize that.” One fan added. The pro-golfer has not endeared himself to the American golfing fans who are still miffed about the Ryder Cup loss in 2023 under his captaincy. Team USA had lost to Team Europe 16 ½ – 11 ½ leading to Zach Johnson being replaced by Keegan Bradley as captain. “Doesn’t everyone hate Zach? I don’t know if I cared for what he had to say before he failed at Ryder Cup captaincy.”

Do you think that such broadcasting issues will drive golfing fans away from the broadcast and reduce viewership further?