Xander Schauffele's Open Championship win sees brutal ratings drop

Xander Schauffele — the no. 2 player in the world, defending gold medalist, and now two-time major winner in 2024 — impressively pulled away from an unheralded leaderboard to win the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon.

For four days, the ever-steady Schauffele (-9) kept his cool and appeared to effortlessly grind through the unpredictable conditions of links golf in Scotland. The San Diego native fired three rounds in the 60s, capped by a sterling bogey-free final-round 65.

Instead of mentally succumbing to the pressure — as he often did, by his own admission, in his various major contentions before winning the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla — Schauffele got sharper. The 30-year-old birdied three of the five most difficult holes on the course (nos. 11, 13, 15), then secured a two-stroke lead with a dagger birdie on no. 16.

All things considered, it was a clinical, thrilling display of closing golf under the most challenging of circumstances, from a PGA Tour Player of the Year candidate in the final major of the year.

Unfortunately, not many folks watched it. NBC and Peacock's final round coverage drew 3.39 million viewers, down approximately four percent from Brian Harman's victorious Sunday at Royal Liverpool in 2023, according to the Sports Business Journal. Overall, the figure marked the lowest for an Open Championship final round since Zach Johnson triumphed at the Old Course in 2015 — an ESPN telecast that concluded on Monday due to weather delays.

Two factors are at play. The time difference of golf's lone overseas major inherently limits viewership (see: LIV Golf). This year's rendition of the British Open also lacked star-power and nail-biting drama.

The 2024 Masters, won by Scottie Scheffler in April, experienced a ratings dip. The lukewarm interest was attributed to the lack of momentum established by the diluted, post-LIV version of the PGA Tour. The first three months of the season were defined by no-names, newcomers, and longshots finding the winner's circle.

Naturally, the audiences picked up as major season got underway.

The 2024 U.S. Open — featuring an uber-compelling showdown between the PGA Tour's Rory McIlroy and LIV's Bryson DeChambeau — was NBC's most-streamed golf event ever, pulling 11.4 million viewers at its peak. One month earlier, at Valhalla, Scheffler's arrest combined with an action-packed Sunday delivered a significant ratings bump for CBS Sports and ESPN.