An unusually concentrated leaderboard gave CBS its highest PGA Championship viewership in five years.
CBS averaged 5.76 million viewers for Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship, a 21% increase from last year compared to Scottie Scheffler’s dominating victory at Quail Hollow in 2025. The match was the most-watched PGA Championship final round since 2021, when 50-year-old Phil Mickelson won an improbable victory at Kiawah in front of 6.58 television viewers. Million viewers.
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Aaron Rye’s back nine this year peaked at 8.02 million viewers, and the final hour of Rye’s round averaged 7.83 million viewers on CBS.
The tournament, which seemed destined to be a close affair for most of the weekend, lacked drama in the final stages, with Rye heating up late and winning by three strokes. If the finish had been a little closer, it could have attracted even more spectators.
Saturday also proved to be historically strong, with dozens of competitors vying for a spot in the final group on Sunday. CBS’ third-round coverage drew 3.86 million viewers, the highest number for a Saturday at the PGA Championship since 2018.
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It is important to note that this is only the second PGA Championship to be measured using Nielsen’s expanded outdoor viewing sample, and the first to be measured based on Nielsen’s new big data + panel methodology. Both changes generally increased viewership for live sports compared to the previous year.
And yet, in the last three PGA Championships, despite being won by three of the sport’s biggest stars in Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka, none had an average audience of more than 5 million viewers for the final round. For a relatively unknown golfer like Aaron Rye to surpass that record should bode well for interest in the remaining spots in this year’s major championships.
Next up is the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, which will be covered by NBC.
The post-PGA Championship match earned CBS the most-watched final round in the past five years.
