Tiger Woods didn’t win the 2018 PGA Championship, but he did give champion Brooks Koepka a run for his money while putting together the best final round we’ve seen in ages.
In the process, Woods had the sports world on the edge of its seat, with many people actually rooting against Koepka as they drooled over the possibility that Woods might finally win his 15th career major.
Due to Woods’ outstanding performance, the television ratings for Sunday’s championship-deciding final round were up by an astounding 69 percent over last year’s final round, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell.
Tiger Effect: The overnight ratings of yesterday’s final round of the PGA Championship were up 69% over last year’s final round overnight ratings.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 13, 2018
That’s the power of Woods.
When he’s at the top of his game (making shots like this), nobody in golf comes close to drumming up the kind of excitement he does.
It’s almost unfair to Koepka, who won his third major championship in 14 months and joined an exclusive group in the process as the fifth man in history to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same year.
As Koepka himself noted after the tournament, “Other than me and my team, I think everybody was rooting for Tiger,” per ESPN.
However, the 28-year-old champion also had this outstanding perspective to share about that: “As they should. He’s the greatest player to ever to play the game. [Woods] is the whole reason people of my generation are even playing golf. To duel it out with him, I don’t think I ever dreamed of that situation today.”
Well stated.
Nobody who watched Sunday’s final round will soon forget it. Woods was electric, and so was Koepka. And we can all agree that golf is just so much more fun when Tiger Woods is on his game and contending for majors.
Hopefully Sunday wasn’t the last time we’ll be treated to such fare.