{"id":20382,"date":"2025-07-24T11:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20382\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:23:10","slug":"scottie-scheffler-probably-doesnt-care-that-youre-not-watching-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20382\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler Probably Doesn’t Care That You’re Not Watching Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere are probably few things that Scottie Scheffler<\/a> cares less about than how many people are watching him as he demonstrates his quiet mastery of golf<\/a>, and yet our relative lack of enthusiasm for the game\u2019s greatest active practitioner is a bit mystifying.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the 29-year-old secured his fourth major title with a victory at Royal Portrush that, at times, felt almost preordained. In a display of prowess that dispensed with the usual TV-friendly theatrics, Scheffler won the 153rd Open Championship\u00a0by four strokes, making him the first worldwide No. 1 to claim the Claret Jug since Tiger Woods<\/a> managed it in 2006.<\/p>\n

According to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics data, approximately 6.1 million viewers watched as Scheffler closed out his round in the 1:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour, while NBC Sports<\/a>\u2019 coverage averaged 4.1 million viewers across the full telecast. While that\u2019s a respectable turnout for an early afternoon of midsummer golf\u2014deliveries across NBC, USA Network and Peacock were up 21% versus last year\u2019s final round and marked the highest turnout since 4.72 million tuned in for the fourth day of the 2022 Open\u2014the gains were made on the back of rather flimsy comps.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the analogous round eked out just 3.39 million viewers, a nine-year low. Not since Zach Johnson\u2019s rain-soaked win at St. Andrews in 2015 has the Open put up lower deliveries here in the States; staged on a Monday afternoon, the four-hole playoff averaged 2.85 million viewers. In other words, Scheffler\u2019s drama-free finish served as more of a reset for NBC than a runaway ratings triumph.<\/p>\n

Still, a win\u2019s a win, even if Scheffler\u2019s TV numbers aren\u2019t in keeping with the level of his game. Four majors in and he\u2019s yet to really draw a crowd that\u2019s worthy of his outsized talents.<\/p>\n

While Scheffler\u2019s first major title gave CBS something of a leg up over the previous year, deliveries for the concluding stage of the 2022 Masters were resolutely unspectacular. Scheffler\u2019s three-stroke win over Rory McIlroy averaged 10.2 million viewers, a figure that (understandably enough) would prove to be well shy of the 13 million the network served up earlier this spring with Wee Mac\u2019s long-awaited Green Jacket grab.<\/p>\n

Two years later, CBS\u2019 Augusta audience slipped to 9.59 million viewers as Scheffler nailed down his second major with a four-stroke win over Ludvig \u00c5berg. It wasn\u2019t a nail-biter by any stretch of the imagination, but the 2024 Masters\u2019 TV turnout was conspicuously watered down, especially in light of all the comparisons to Tiger Woods that began circulating as Scheffler thrust his arms into the famous blazer for a second time.<\/p>\n

The Tiger talk resumed in earnest on Saturday, when NBC\u2019s Jim \u201cBones\u201d Mackay, who lugged Phil Mickelson\u2019s clubs for 25 years, remarked, \u201cI never thought I\u2019d see a player as close to Tiger as this man currently is.\u201d Scheffler would later dismiss any such comparisons, characterizing the praise as \u201ca bit silly.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Scheffler\u2019s dominance doesn\u2019t exactly make for an unscheduled collapse onto the sports TV swooning couch\u2014his five-stroke win in this year\u2019s PGA Championship averaged 4.76 million viewers, down 4% from CBS\u2019 previous number\u2014that\u2019s something that casual fans will have to figure out for themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, Scheffler often has the bearing of a man who\u2019s suddenly been seized by the suspicion that he\u2019s left the oven on, but the disconnect between his hangdog mien and all that lethal business he gets up to with his TaylorMades only makes him all the more compelling.<\/p>\n

In an age where we probably know far too much about our favorite athletes, Scheffler is something of an enigma\u2014a philosopher king with a masterful short game. During a pre-Open sit-down with reporters last week, Scheffler mused on the ephemeral nature of victory, wondering aloud at his own drive to collect trophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like showing up at the Masters every year; it\u2019s like, why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly?\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cWhy do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don\u2019t know. Because if I win, it\u2019s going to be awesome for two minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not exactly \u201cWin one for the Gipper,\u201d but hey, these are questions worth asking.<\/p>\n

Scheffler would go on to assess his relationship to the sport, suggesting that the path he\u2019s taken isn\u2019t all lollipops and bumblebees. \u201cThis is not a fulfilling life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it\u2019s not fulfilling from a sense of, like, the deepest places of your heart. \u2026 All of the sudden you get to No. 1 in the world and it\u2019s like, \u2018What\u2019s the point?\u2019 And I really do believe that because, you know, what is the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the face of that revelation, Scheffler\u2019s interlocutors indulged in a rolling chuckle. And Scheffler chuckled right along with them. The upshot was clear: If golf does not \u201cfill the deepest wants and desires\u201d of Scottie Scheffler\u2019s heart, his little family does the trick.<\/p>\n

Five days after saying that he\u2019d \u201cmuch rather be a great father than \u2026 a great golfer,\u201d Scheffler celebrated his latest title with a little toddler slapstick, care of his 14-month-old son. According to Scheffler, Bennett is already swinging a club, although he mostly prefers to hit other kids with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are probably few things that Scottie Scheffler cares less about than how many people are watching him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,17228,1974,82,6982],"class_list":["post-20382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-nbc-sports","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports","tag-tiger-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}