After many years of resisting dog ownership, we now have the world’s best dog at home. His name is Larry, a mini golden retriever, with a small percentage of cocker spaniel for extra personality. My old friend Bill Campbell, the great amateur and USGA president, had a golden retriever named Randy who usually walked along when he played. Golf’s most famous golden labrador retriever was Mulligan, who preferred to ride in a golf cart with Arnold Palmer. Our Larry does not yet have the composure for on-course accompaniment, but he loves to watch golf on television, so we’re kindred spirits. And this sets up a compelling competition between the two of us each November.
Our annual ritual on Thanksgiving afternoon is to watch the National Dog Show on NBC, which along with the Masters on CBS are our two favorite viewing pleasures. (The competition itself takes place this year Nov. 15-16.) We have a rooting interest in both for who’s going to come out on top. Soleil, a 6-year-old Belgian Sheepdog, and Rory McIlroy, a 37-year-old Northern Irishman, are the current champions, but the real battle is over which program has the larger television audience. For the last four years, the dogs have a slight advantage over the golfers—averaging 11.93 million to 11.20 million viewers (based on Nielsen/NBC-Peacock vs. CBS linear numbers).
The dog show won in 2022: 10.83 million to 10.17 million. The Masters won in 2023: 12.06 to 11.90. The dog show trounced in 2024: 12.20 to 9.59. The Masters won narrowly in 2025: 12.99 to 12.80. It stands 2-2 heading into Thanksgiving.
I can tell Larry is concerned because the Masters jumped to 13.995 million viewers on Sunday this year, its largest audience since 2015, following an upward trend for golf. Brian Rolapp, commissioner of the PGA Tour, says golf’s week-to-week ratings are up 19 percent since 2025 and 40 percent since 2024.
This needs to be kept in perspective. Rolapp comes from the NFL world, so he thinks in increments of pro football and has been known to say that the Tour Championship is “our Super Bowl.” No, we don’t have a Super Bowl, but if we did, it would be the Masters. By comparison, the Tour Championship’s final-round viewership this year was 5.37 million—less than half of the National Dog Show and paltry compared with Super Bowl LX’s 125.6 million viewers.
Andy North looks at a dog on the course during the 1989 Masters
Augusta National
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What I tell Larry to keep in mind is that only one golf tournament is in the top 100 U.S. live sports telecasts of 2026; the Masters is currently ranked 98th. Of the top 100, the NFL is dominant, occupying 66 spots, followed by college football (12), FIFA/World Cup soccer (7), NBA (6), MLB (4), college basketball (3), horse racing and golf (1 each). The sad reality is that neither golf nor dog shows are major sports, at least in terms of eyeballs.
Golf punches above its weight because of who watches, not how many. There’s no consistent dataset, but ChatGPT estimates that golf viewers with annual household income exceeding $150,000 lead all sports at 34 percent; college football 29 percent; NFL 22 percent; MLB 21 percent; NBA 19 percent. Tom Knapp, executive vice president and general manager of the Golf Channel, says the golf audience is 40 percent more likely to be a C-suite executive than the average TV viewer. Age works against golf: The average age of the TV audience is 50 for basketball, 54 for football, 60 for baseball and 63 for golf, according to Nielsen.
Larry acknowledges that these are human years, not dog years, and golf is not just a sport; it’s a lifestyle. No CEOs are playing football or baseball or soccer. Obama shoots hoops, but I don’t think Biden or Trump did, and all of them play and are passionate about golf.
Back to Larry: As any dog owner knows, it’s all about Larry. “Everybody’s favorite golfer is themselves,” says Jon Miller, NBC’s godfather of the dog show, “and everybody’s favorite dog is their own dog. You can’t wait to see your breed in the show.”
Just for the record, Larry points out, in the U.S. there are 29.1 million golfers and 87.3 million dogs. It’s not enough for dogs to win; golfers must lose.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
