Golf’s return to the Olympics worked, according to the TV ratings

Rory McIlroy was just one of millions of viewers who tuned in to watch Sunday’s final round of the men’s Olympic golf tournament.

In fact, the finale of the four-day event that started out with low expectations amid high-profile withdrawals and so many Rio-related potential catastrophes went out with a bang that delivered the second-highest overnight TV rating for any 90 minutes of golf programming this year other than the final round of the Masters.

That hour and a half, which featured eventual gold medalist Justin Rose and silver finisher Henrik Stenson dueling down to Rose’s final putt on the 72nd hole, produced a 6.3 overnight rating for the tournament that was simulcast on NBC and Golf Channel, according to SportsMediaWatch.com.

Fans worldwide had their TV sets turned to Olympic golf during the entire afternoon as well. From noon through about 3:10 p.m. ET, the competition earned the highest household rating (1.02, with 1.6 million viewers) since Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson went head to head at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2012.

Even early coverage (6 a.m.-noon) was a huge success for Golf Channel, which recorded its best numbers in that time slot since Woods won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2008.

In a potentially positive note for the “grow the gamers,” NBC corralled the “youngest” audience for the Olympic contest (adults 18-49 made up 30 percent of viewers) since its coverage of the 2013 U.S. Open. Indeed, the viewership was younger than any regular-season tour event’s final round in the past four years.