PGA Tour's viewership skyrockets to 2.187M for Viktor Hovland's win at the 2025 Valspar Championship on Sunday

Golf fans tuned in to watch Viktor Hovland's resurgent victory at the Valspar Championship on Sunday (March 23). As per Josh Carpenter on X, without streaming numbers, the final round saw 2.187 million viewers, which is a fair increase from last year.

In 2024, Peter Malnati captured the title by two strokes, and his winning round saw 1.886 million viewers. 2025 had a 16% increase thanks to Hovland's first win in about 18 months.

It is slightly down from the two years prior, though. The Valspar in 2023 had 2.594 million viewers for Taylor Moore's one-stroke win over Adam Schenk and Jordan Spieth.

The year before that, Sam Burns' playoff win over Davis Riley got 2.454 million viewers, so 2024 was a slight depression from that. For the entire weekend, NBC averaged 1.745 million, a 10% increase in viewership.

Professional golf has been fighting a ratings battle for years. Much has been made about how little fans are invested in the tournaments and how few tune in to see the results. However, 2025's results are encouraging on that front, and the Valspar is the latest example.

Hovland had been in a spiral since winning the BMW Championship and FedEx Tour Championship in two consecutive weeks in 2023. It had been about 18 months and numerous coaching changes between wins, and his streak-ending victory got the attention of the golf world.

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Viktor Hovland discusses stunning PGA Tour victory

It had been so long since Viktor Hovland had won a PGA Tour tournament that he didn't think he was capable of doing it anymore. He proved himself and any critics wrong last week.

Viktor Hovland broke his losing streak (Image via Imagn)

Via Golf.com, Hovland said after his win:

"When you have no confidence and you don’t believe you’re going to play well that’s pretty tough."

He added:

"It’s unbelievable to see that I could win. Because I honestly did not believe that I could do it this week."

Viktor Hovland admitted he's still hitting a lot of "disgusting shots" and that his game isn't where it needs to be, but the win was a huge step in the right direction. The fact that he won is one thing because he almost didn't even play at all.

On this, the Norwegian golfer said:

"I wasn’t even sure I was going to play or not until I got here Tuesday afternoon and played a late nine holes. I played nine holes in the pro-am the next morning and we were here ready to go."

After that, he played his way into a 54-hole lead and admitted on Saturday evening that he wasn't sure how to act in that situation. He said he tried to play his game and remain as comfortable and confident as he could possibly be, which he admitted was not much. Still, it resulted in a drought-ending win over Justin Thomas, who is also in a bit of a drought.