Rory McIlroy at long last winning the Masters was one of those sports moments we’ll remember for a long time. To know the journey he had been on leading up to that final putt Sunday, and to see the emotions pour out of him after winning his first major in 11 years to complete the career grand slam was truly touching. It was all the things we love about sports.
It was also probably the worst thing that could’ve happened to the Masters short of Tiger Woods tearing his Achilles one month prior to the tournament. Allow me to explain.
For more than two decades, the Masters has enjoyed the bump in viewership that comes with Woods merely showing up at Augusta National and competing, whether he was at the top of his game or not. Usually he was, but even last year’s shell of a five-time Masters champion helped provide the tournament’s best first-round viewership since 2015.
In order to pull in casual viewers who might not tune in otherwise, the Masters needs a draw, a story for people to care about. For years, Woods was that. It was about his unmatched greatness, his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus, then his personal slip-ups and attempts to get back on top. But in the event Woods was unavailable, the Masters could always fall back on McIlroy’s seemingly unending pursuit of a green jacket. It wouldn’t provide quite the same bump, but it would suffice.
People cared about McIlroy’s chase — so much so he was the biggest liability to win the Masters at BetMGM. Folks were actually willing to ignore his previous shortcomings and put their money on his eventual triumph. Even before McIlroy exorcised his late-round demons with a playoff win over Justin Rose, it was fair to expect CBS to see a considerable jump over last year’s disappointing final-round ratings, which were down 20% for Scottie Scheffler’s second win. It’s not unrelated that Woods and McIlroy were out of contention for that one.
But that’s all CBS needed. McIlroy in contention, not him actually winning the thing. Because as McIlroy joked on Sunday, “what are we all going to talk about next year.” No, but seriously. Now that the last person people cared about is at the mountaintop, where does the Masters go from here?
This isn’t a new question in golf. It’s loomed large since Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open on a surgically-repaired knee that needed more surgery and forced him to miss the rest of the season, and PGA ratings dropped by more than 46% from the previous year. Almost 20 years later, and golf still doesn’t have an answer. No one has come along yet to capture the wonder and imagination of the masses in quite the same way. No young player has been able to sustain greatness for long enough. No great player has been interesting enough.
But there was at least McIlroy — more specifically McIlroy’s pursuit of history. And now that’s gone. Unless his win spurs a run of major wins that puts him on another historic chase, or a battered and bruised Woods returns to save the day, it may be a long time before golf captures the attention of the masses like this again.