Big surprise--without Tiger Woods, the PGA Championship's overnight ratings for Sunday dropped 55% to a 3.0, according to Dick Friedman of golf.com...
Cratering. Devastation. Decimation. Those are a few of the kinder terms to characterize the decline in the PGA Tour's most conspicuous indicators since Tiger Woods underwent season-ending knee surgery just a few days after his epic U.S. Open win in June. In the immediate wake of The Tiger Show at Torrey Pines, the Tour was riding a crest: Its prime-time rating and audience share for NBC's final-round telecast that Sunday (10.0/20) had been even higher than the figures for the competing NBA Finals Game 5 on ABC (9.0/16).
Since then, however, golf's TV ratings have fallen into the abyss. Despite Padraig Harrington's thrilling victory on Sunday at Oakland Hills, the overnight rating for the PGA Championship was 3.0, down 55% from last year's final round at Southern Hills — an event won by (surely you recall) Woods.
