Christian Petersen/PGA of America
By Alex Myers
Most golf fans woke up on Thursday morning excited to finally be able to watch the first major of the year. Many wound up frustrated when they learned early-round coverage of the PGA Championship wasn’t anywhere to be found on TV.
Watching streaming coverage during golf tournaments has certainly become more common in recent years, but major championships—other than the Masters—usually expand their TV windows. Not the 2020 PGA. The first six hours on both Thursday and Friday—along with the first two hours on both Saturday and Sunday—will be available only online. And the location proved to be the bigger point of contention.
With ESPN beginning its 11-year deal with the PGA, the network used its subscription streaming platform, ESPN+, for those early windows. That meant not only did fans have to find it, but in most cases, they had to pay extra for it. You didn’t expect to miss TNT having PGA broadcast rights, did you?
Of course, this wasn’t some last-minute decision. And golf fans were warned about the situation before the tournament started, including with our PGA viewers’ guide. But it still had people scrambling as much as the world’s best golfers at TPC Harding Park.
And they were not happy—especially since Tiger Woods’ first round was played in that early streaming window. Here’s a sampling of some of the reactions on Twitter:
By the way… @espn plus is a joke. Hurting that bad for money? Maybe instead of playing sport center 10 times in a row in the morning you should AIR a PGA MAJOR!
— Gimmie Bets (@GimmieBets) August 6, 2020
The PGA Championship is actually on ESPN plus today and not a regular channel? Like, the first major in over a year isn’t on cable tv is what I’m seeing? pic.twitter.com/oi1qAipefm
— TinCupDeHaven (@ChrisDeHaven11) August 6, 2020
Screw @espn ??& their stupid #ESPNPLUS for trying to nickel & dime golf fans . Charging for early round coverage of the #PGAChampionship !
Especially when many notables had early tee times .@PGATOUR , @PGAChampionship
— Moguls Mattt (@MatttMogul) August 6, 2020
@espn should be ashamed of themselves to force Americans to pay to watch first 6 hours of @PGAChampionship …#espnplus finally major championship golf and there are a bunch of people going to miss #tigerwoods and many more first round. @espn has been on my shit list already ?
— Derek Reed (@dtraindaddy) August 6, 2020
First MAJOR of 2020, during a pandemic, and TIGER ? is on the course (currently -2) and I have to pay @ESPNPlus to watch? Come on @PGAChampionship be better #PGAChampionship
— t i m Ξ s (@TimSavolainen) August 6, 2020
@PGATOUR and @espn you are garbage for putting this on espn plus we shouldnt have to go through that … for 2 rounds of golf you wanna get in my pockets gtfoh !!! pic.twitter.com/osrXJOVWnx
— AndreSportsFan (@AndreSportsFan) August 6, 2020
To be fair, the coverage—once you bought it and found it—led by Scott Van Pelt and with limited interruptions was very good and plenty praised it on Twitter as well. And ESPN did cut into SportsCenter to show some of the action. But we’re guessing the network also achieved its goal of adding a lot of new subscribers to ESPN+. After all, golf fans have been waiting a long time to watch a major championship again.