NEW YORK -- Tiger Woods doesn't have to win to draw a big
television audience.
ABC's telecast of Sergio Garcia's 1-up victory over Woods in
Monday night's live, made-for-TV, match-play "Battle at Bighorn"
garnered a big-market overnight rating of 8.6 with a 14 share.
That's an increase of 16 percent over the 7.4 preliminary rating
and 12 share that ABC drew for last year's match-play contest
between Woods and David Duval, who at the time was ranked No. 2 in
the world. That "Showdown at Sherwood," which Woods won 2-and-1,
was the first live network telecast of a golf event in prime time.
Woods-Garcia, which aired from 8-11:30 p.m. EDT, drummed up
better preliminary ratings than ABC's "Monday Night Football"
averaged for its three preseason games (7.8) and helped the network
win the night, bettering CBS by 13 percent in the overnight
numbers.
Garcia was selected to face Woods about six months ago, when the
Spaniard was looking like an up-and-coming star.
Now, after a rough season without a victory, he's ranked 15th -- and no one has been able to slow Woods, who has won the last three
majors and generated whopping TV ratings each time.
Garcia got the nod because of the animated way he often plays,
such as last year's PGA Championship, when he ran across the
fairway and leaped into the air as he chased a shot on the final
day. He lost the PGA to Woods by one shot.
That victory started Woods on a streak that has seen him win
four of the last five majors.
When he won the U.S. Open by a record 15 strokes in June, NBC's
telecast drew the highest Sunday rating for the tournament since
1981. His victory a month later at the British Open -- to complete
his career Grand Slam at 24, the youngest player to do so -- helped
ABC pull in that tournament's biggest ratings for a Sunday. And his
victory at the PGA Championship this month helped CBS get that
event's second-highest final-round rating ever.
"I don't want to sound like a broken record, because virtually
every time a network executive is quoted after a Tiger Woods event
they say the same thing, but he is an incredible ratings-generating
machine," ABC Sports vice president Mark Mandel said Tuesday.
The rating is the percentage of U.S. television households that
tuned in to a program, and the overnights measure about 60 percent
of the country. The share represents the percentage of in-use TVs
tuned to a given show.
National ratings were expected to be released later Tuesday.
