Despite Tiger Woods, no ratings record for the Masters

(This photo, by Harry How of Getty Images, is titled: “Tiger Woods celebrates.” If this “celebratory” look on Woods’ face, after getting a birdie in No. 13, doesn’t show that he was in it to win it, I don’t know what does.)

In television circles, there are three different classifications for final round golf ratings: there are events that Tiger Woods doesn’t play in, events that Tiger plays in, and events that Tiger plays in and is competitive. Sunday’s fourth round coverage of the Masters teetered between the higher of the three ratios, as Woods struggled to find his stroke in his first tournament back since crashing his car and revealing to the world that he was a philandering sex addict. Even though Woods was never within four strokes of the lead, CBS drew a 12.0 overnight rating for their coverage of The Masters on Sunday -- making it the third most-watched edition of the tournament in history; only the 1997 and 2001 Masters, events that Woods won, posted a greater viewership.

Had Woods not made so many mistakes in the third and fourth rounds, which included a whopping five bogeys in the final round alone, he likely would’ve propelled the 2010 Masters as the most-watched ever. For perspective, the highest-rated editions of the four major golf tournaments have one trait in common: they all happened within the last 14 years, and they were all won by Tiger Woods.