Tiger Woods’s comeback win in Sunday’s Arnold Palmer Invitational attracted the highest overnight television rating for a golf event since last year’s US Open.
According to Nielsen Media Research, NBC Sports’s rating peaked at 7.8 between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm local time as Woods and Sean O’Hair played their final holes at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, after college basketball’s tournament games had been completed.
Coverage was seen in 4.9 percent of homes in the biggest U.S. markets, the best television performance at the event in seven years. The rating was 23 per cent up on last year, and it outperformed the final rounds of the 2008 British Open and PGA Championship.
NBC Sports’ coverage was also the highest rated of any non- major U.S. PGA Tour tournament in more than two years, said the network.
Woods came from five strokes behind to seal his 66th PGA Tour title, playing only his third tournament since returning from reconstructive knee surgery.
Nielsen ratings points are the percentage of the estimated 111.3 million U.S. households with televisions that watched the broadcast. Preliminary ratings measure the number of viewers in the biggest U.S. cities and final ratings include numbers from smaller television markets.
