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‘Tiger Woods is back.’ You’ve undoubtedly read or heard that phrase countless times over the past few weeks. Tiger finished tied for 5th last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando and he finished tied for 2nd the week before that at the Valspar Championship.
He’s 35th in the FedEx Cup rankings after not even being on the radar just a few weeks ago AND he’s already earned $1,121,685 on the course this season without winning a tournament (yet). All signs indicate that a 80th PGA tournament win is just around the corner for Tiger Woods and he has a lot of reasons to be excited as a player now that it appears his swing is back…You know who else is excited? Fans.
When Tiger Woods is in the hunt on Sunday it makes the entire world of Sports a better place. Pro athletes were going nuts two weeks ago when Sunday was T-2 at the Valspar Championship, tweeting out congratulations and how Tiger’s back. Meanwhile, millions of fans were tuning into their TVs to watch Tiger Woods compete and that’s caused a ‘Tiger Effect’ on the ratings that the PGA Tour hasn’t seen in years.
Golf Digest reports that the ratings from the Valspar and Arnold Palmer Invitational tied or beat the majority of last year’s major championships:
Despite stiff competition from the NCAA basketball tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational drew a 3.6 overnight rating on Sunday. That is miles ahead of last year’s 1.5 mark, when Marc Leishman fended off Kevin Kisner, Charley Hoffman and Rory McIlroy at Bay Hill. Though Sunday’s figure didn’t match the Valspar Championship’s eye-opening 5.1 rating, the 3.6 tied numbers from the final rounds at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, and bettered the Open Championship’s 3.2.
This result is largely a byproduct of the presence of Tiger Woods and his spirited final-round surge. The 42-year-old overcame a five-stroke deficit to get within one of the lead, a comeback that coincided with NBC’s peak 4.89 rating from 5:15-5:30 p.m ET. (via)
You know who probably aren’t loving Tiger’s resurgence? Golf courses in Florida. Greens fees are all but certain to be down if Tiger Woods continues to be in the hunt throughout the 4 majors and other PGA tournaments this Summer. Many golfers would love to stay home and watch Tiger Woods compete instead of losing five balls on the back nine.
For more on the surge in TV ratings you can click here to visit Golf Digest.