The PGA Tour has endured an inauspicious start to the 2025 season. Declining ratings, slow-play backlash, injured superstars and more buzz around a weeknight sim league than the Tour itself have conspired to create a lackluster kickoff to a critical season.
At this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, there is a chance to change that narrative.
All of the Tour's biggest stars, except Xander Schauffele, are playing at Pebble this week, headlined by Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth returning from injuries and Rory McIlroy making his 2025 PGA Tour debut.
The NFL is off ahead of the Super Bowl, providing the PGA Tour an opportunity to grab the Sunday spotlight it hopes to occupy after next week.
Celebrities will be on display only in the first two rounds. Pebble Beach is one of the most picturesque and high-anticipated stops each year, and, with the smaller field that comes with signature-event status, pace of play shouldn’t be an issue.
With all these factors in its favor, the PGA Tour must capitalize and provide fans with an event worth tuning into.
So far this season, the PGA Tour's three events have drawn lower TV ratings than last year. Two weeks ago, 232,000 people tuned in Sunday to watch Sepp Straka win the American Express, a nearly 60% dip from the previous year when amateur Nick Dunlap won.
Last week at the Farmers Insurance Open, the Sunday storyline again was slow play, with CBS analyst Dottie Pepper calling it out on the air. The last group took five hours and 29 minutes to complete their round, about the same time it took the week before at the Amex.
Couple those issues with the fact that Scheffler, McIlroy, Spieth and many of the other biggest television draws for the Tour have had yet to play or play well this year and a cloud of negativity has taken hold.
Meanwhile, Tiger Woods’s indoor simulator league, TGL, is outdrawing the Tour. Through its first three weeks, TGL averaged 869,000 viewers per event. That’s higher than any PGA Tour event this year, though at least the Tour owns a bit of that rising tide as a TGL stakeholder.
This would be a good week for the Tour’s outdoor business to recapture attention. Twenty-seven of the top 30 players in the world are on the Monterey Peninsula, virtually the best gathering you’ll see outside of majors.
This is the first PGA Tour event in 2025 for world No. 1 Scheffler, who cut his hand at home over the holidays, and Spieth, who is returning from wrist surgery. McIlroy has played on the DP World Tour this year but is making his season debut on the PGA Tour. The intrigue around those three is a big chance to capture an audience that can also hopefully be retained.
The Tour needs big names battling to the end and, obviously, it can’t control that. But the current TV ratings are undeniable.
The always-entertaining WM Phoenix Open follows Pebble. The raucous crowds at the TPC Scottsdale give the event an identity, and a reason for fans to tune into before the Super Bowl. But that’s a one-off.
The Tour needs its signature events to deliver big-name drama, and this one is the most important in the three-year history of the format. Perhaps the Tour can write its own redemption story, starting at Pebble Beach.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The PGA Tour Needs to Recapture Its Mojo, Starting at Pebble Beach.
