Akshay Bhatia's three-putt on the 72nd hole helped Cameron Davis become the only player at 18 under par to win the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic, which led to a big ratings boost for CBS Sports.
The network averaged 2.472 million viewers for Sunday's final round at the Detroit Golf Club, up 1 percent from last year, when Rickie Fowler beat Collin Morikawa and Adam Hadwin in a playoff. Fowler has a pretty impressive following among PGA Tour fans, so his win got a lot of attention. It also marked Fowler's first PGA Tour win since 2019. That said, last year the tour's final round started early because of bad weather, forcing CBS to postpone the taped broadcast until the afternoon, hurting ratings.
Weather also impacted this year's tournament, but mainly during the third round on Saturday.
But luckily for the network, Mother Nature didn't cause any issues or delays on Sunday, which led to CBS producing the highest-rated non-major/signature event of the 2024 season, according to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal.
Cameron Davis poses with the trophy after winning the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic. Photo by Gregory Schamus/Getty Images
According to a CBS Sports spokesperson, Bhatia and Davis' late appearances helped the show peak with more than 4 million viewers (4.028 million to be exact) during the 6:00-6:17 pm ET time slot — impressive numbers considering many of Detroit's top players didn't play last week.
A similar sentiment will likely be felt about this week's John Deere Classic, with Jordan Spieth leading the field, and CBS will be broadcasting the third and final rounds live from the Quad Cities this week.
Next week's Genesis Scottish Open will also be broadcast live from the Renaissance Club in Scotland.
CBS Sports plans to wrap up the 2024 golf season with two events around the Paris Summer Olympics — the 3M Open in late July and the Wyndham Championship in August. NBC Sports has the broadcast rights to this year's FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.