After a down year in 2024, PGA Tour viewership bounced back in 2025, with weekend telecasts on CBS and NBC averaging 2.28 million viewers, a 22% jump from the previous year. So, the audience is clearly still there. But that doesn’t mean fans are happy with what they’re getting when they tune in. That frustration surfaced again at the 2026 BMW Championship, with Golf Channel’s coverage once again becoming the source of fan frustration.

Instead of following the biggest names and FedExCup drama, viewers were met with a frustrating broadcast. Golf Channel carried an early-afternoon window before CBS took over, but frequent commercial breaks and stretches of studio analysis while live play continued on the course left fans wondering why they weren’t seeing more of the action. For viewers following the biggest names, that gap was hard to ignore.

Coverage of Scottie Scheffler’s round did not begin until it was already underway. Instead of showing the World No. 1’s performance from the start, the network opted for studio analysis. Combined with frequent commercial breaks, this broadcast format gave viewers a fragmented experience.

That made the snub even harder to understand. The BMW Championship had just 50 players, with only 30 advancing to the Tour Championship. Scheffler was defending his title and closing in on Tiger Woods’ career earnings record. This was hardly a routine event. Moreover, this isn’t an isolated incident.

Golf Channel has faced criticism on multiple occasions, like during the Cadillac Championship earlier this season; the broadcaster faced similar “TV malpractice” backlash during the event’s final round, with fans saying there were more commercials than golf. One fan said that during the last 10 minutes of coverage, the network showed just seven shots, spread across multiple golfers.

Similarly, the coverage of the 2026 U.S. Open was referred to as horrendous and unwatchable because of the commercial overload. Golf Channel has faced repeated scrutiny over LPGA coverage too.

During The ANNIKA 2025, coverage was cut at 1 p.m. ET on Friday, forcing viewers to miss elites like Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson, as well as LPGA debutant Kai Trump. A similar complaint surfaced at the Chevron Championship 2026, where the final group teed off at 12:08 p.m. ET but coverage didn’t begin until 1:30 p.m.

The complaints have grown loud enough on social media to put the network’s coverage choices under a microscope.

Fans lash out at Golf Channel over BMW Championship coverage

“@PGATOUR @GolfChannelPR Has the worst coverage of all sports. Scottie [Scheffler] tees off and they pick up coverage halfway through his round. They don’t start coverage and have commentators in a studio talking about the day. Put golf on the tv with the first player of the day,” one X handle wrote. The criticism clearly points to the television schedule gap.

Third-round tee times began at around 9 a.m. ET, while Golf Channel’s live window did not begin until 1 p.m. ET. That left several hours of tournament action outside the network’s linear television coverage. Even after the coverage started, long stretches of studio analysis kept viewers from seeing professionals grinding on the course, with the network continuing to dedicate substantial airtime to programs such as Live From around major tournaments.

The commercial load was another major source of frustration. One fan said, “@GolfChannel should NOT be allowed to televise live @PGATOUR golf. Three minutes of coverage and three minutes of commercials is not viewer friendly. #Fail” while another wrote, “Hey @GolfChannel what are we doing. I’m 10 minutes into watching and there have been 2 separate commercial breaks and 2 playing throughs. Do you absolutely hate your viewers? I know the business model and this ain’t it.”

This criticism echoed across multiple 2026 tournaments, including majors. A month later, at The Open Championship, viewers made the same comparison to Sky Sports, noting its European feed ran uninterrupted for 15 minutes while NBC and USA Network cut to commercials three times in that same stretch. The PGA Championship drew similar complaints after viewers tracked 5 minutes and 40 seconds of commercials on CBS during a 17-minute stretch of coverage.

One fan summed up the experience more sarcastically. “3 shots per commercial break … Golf Channel in peak form 🙌,” the fan wrote, a clear jab at coverage that has focused far more on commercials than golf.

The frustration became even more blunt in a separate reaction. “It feels like they are trolling us,” said a different fan.

For fans, this proved to be a significant problem. Their comments suggest that the issue is less about the amount of golf being played and more about how much of that action actually reaches the television screen.