Pebble Beach in primetime gives women’s golf unprecedented opportunity to attract new fans

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This week’s US Women’s Open, making its maiden visit to Pebble Beach, is an unprecedented opportunity for professional women’s golf. With it comes 12 hours of weekend coverage that lasts into primetime on the East Coast, an alchemy that provides the LPGA Tour a first-of-its-kind opportunity to reach new audiences.

“Our Golf Channel broadcast from our West Coast [tournaments] are some of our most highly viewed events, and then to have that on NBC Network television in primetime for the first time ever, it’s really, really special,” Golf Channel commentator and former US Women’s Open champion Morgan Pressel said.

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“Then you put the two of them together. People are going to tune in because they’ve heard of Pebble Beach. They might have never watched an LPGA event in their life, but they’ve heard of Pebble Beach, and here it is on Sunday evening and they’re flipping through channels and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is really amazing; this is some incredible golf. What an exciting event.’”

Building towards this moment, players have clamoured for years about the importance of playing at prestigious venues to entice casual fans to watch them compete. Pebble Beach fits the bill, as golf fans can picture some of the game’s most iconic holes with their eyes closed.

With a simple search on YouTube, you can relive the images of Jack Nicklaus’ 1-iron on 17 at the 1972 US Open, Tom Watson chipping in on the same par 3 to best Nicklaus a decade later, or Tiger Woods’ world-shattering 2000 performance, among many historic golf moments. The LPGA’s players can now benefit from the memories evoked from the six US Opens held at Pebble.

“I think being on iconic venues is a more sustainable improvement for the tour, because it increases the media value, and you have to increase media value to attain more money,” Michelle Wie West, the 2014 US Women’s Open champion, said.

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Visiting heralded golf courses isn’t a one-off trend for the LPGA. Only two weeks ago, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was held at New Jersey’s Baltusrol Golf Club, the first time a women’s major was played there since 1985. The AIG Women’s Open was at Muirfield last year, which held 16 Open Championships before the women made their debut, female members were finally admitted in 2019. They’ll return to St. Andrews next year, the second appearance there along with 2007. On its first trip to Southern California, the US Women’s Open goes to Riviera Country Club in 2026. The women return to the West for a major again next year at Sahalee in Sammamish, Wash., for the Women’s PGA.

Two of golf’s biggest attractions, Michelle Wie West and Rose Zhang, walk together during a practice round at Pebble Beach ahead of the US Women’s Open. Kathryn Riley

Visiting West Coast venues paid off recently for the US Women’s Open. Two years ago at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, with seven hours on NBC, the event averaged 600,000 viewers, for a 62-percent increase in viewership year-over-year.

The West Coast boost occurred just two weeks ago at the men’s US Open at Los Angeles Country Club, where ratings averaged 3.4 million viewers across NBC’s platforms. It’s the best ratings since … wait for it … 2019 when it was on the West Coast at Pebble Beach.

The USGA strongly believes that women also will see a ratings jump from playing at Pebble. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we were 50 per cent higher than Pine Needles,” USGA Chief Commercial Officer Jon Podany said.