Sunday’s Final Round Coverage Begins at 4 a.m. ET on USA Network; Continues at 7 a.m. ET on NBC and Peacock
Second Round Viewership on USA Network Up 37% vs. 2024; Most-Watched First Two Rounds Since 2022
“I never thought in my lifetime I’d see a player as close to Tiger as this man currently is. Scottie Scheffler just blows my mind every time I watch him play.” – Jim “Bones’ Mackay on Scottie Scheffler (-14, Leader)
“(The chasers) have two problems - he doesn’t make mistakes, and you can’t make any.” – Kevin Kisner on Scheffler’s four-stroke lead
“As it was with Tiger, they are trying to slow down a 747 with a butterfly net.” – Rich Lerner on Scheffler
“For everything that he’s done in the game, I bet there haven’t been many more enjoyable rounds than this for Rory.” – John Wood on Rory McIlroy’s 5-under 66 (-8, T-4th)
STAMFORD, Conn. – July 19, 2025 – NBC Sports presented exclusive third-round coverage of the 153rd Open Championship from Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland, across NBC, USA Network, and Peacock, capped by Golf Central Live From the Open studio coverage on GOLF Channel.
Sunday’s final-round coverage begins tomorrow at 4 a.m. ET on USA Network and continues at 7 a.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.
NBC Sports’ second round coverage of the 153rd Open on USA Network and NBC Sports Digital (8-3:33 p.m. ET) produced a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.2 million average viewers, up 37% vs. 2024, to rank as the most-watched second round since the 150th Open at St Andrews, based on Nielsen Fast National data with projected out-of-home. Viewership peaked at more than 1.6 million viewers in the 3-3:15 p.m. ET quarter hour. Overall, Thursday/Friday early-round coverage on USA Network and NBC Sports Digital platforms averaged more than 1 million viewers and are on-pace to be the most-watched early rounds since 2022. Peacock’s second-round (1:30-4 a.m. ET) viewership saw similar gains, up 29% vs. the comparable window in 2024.
153rd Open Championship – Third Round Leaderboard
| Player | Total | |
| 1. | Scottie Scheffler | -14 |
| 2. | Haotong Li | -10 |
| 3. | Matthew Fitzpatrick | -9 |
| T4 | Rory McIlroy | -8 |
| T4. | Chris Gotterup | -8 |
| T4. | Tyrrell Hatton | -8 |
| T4. | Harris English | -8 |
ON SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER (-15, Leader)
Jim “Bones” Mackay: “Having watched Tiger play in his prime – and I think Tiger is the greatest player I’ve ever seen – I never thought in my lifetime I’d see a player as close to Tiger as this man currently is. Scottie Scheffler just blows my mind every time I watch him play.”
Paul McGinley on Scheffler’s round: “It’s the Scottie Scheffler show, isn’t it? Rory threw the kitchen sink at him today, for example, and what did he do? Gain one shot on him. I thought Scheffler was supreme. You want to know how to close out a tournament, how to take the lead, how to extend the lead, how to not give any encouragement to the chasing pack? I mean it was all there today. I mean it’s not a foregone conclusion, this is golf. You’re not going to say it’s definitely over, but boy oh boy does it look ominous particularly when he putts as well as he’s putting.”
Brandel Chamblee: “I was lucky enough to play in the Tiger era and I was lucky enough to sit up here and talk about and watch Tiger play, and now you get to see Scottie Scheffler play at a level that is so rarely ascended to in the history of golf…Never thought I’d see it, and we get to sit here and we can count ourselves lucky twice where in the last twenty, thirty years, getting to see this type of performance.”
McGinley on Scheffler at Royal Portrush: “You have to move the ball all around this golf course. It’s a real shot-makers course and we are seeing one of the greatest shot makers in the history of the game today at his very best. Some of the shots that he has played today have been absolutely outstanding.”
Dan Hicks: “He will not do it in the most spectacular form, but Scottie Scheffler performs each and every week at a level we’re just not used to.”
McGinley: “Links golf has really given him a chance to showcase his talent, expression of moving the ball around the golf course and we’re seeing a lot of it today.”
Kevin Kisner on Scheffler heading into the final round with the 54-hole lead: “Just not the guy you want to be chasing. He hits quality shot after quality shot. Never has anything wild going on and the two times he hit poor shots today he was able to capitalize making both par putts with authority right in the middle…When you walk out to that first tee and you look up on Saturday and he’s the one leading, you’re already starting to feel that sunken feeling like, ‘How do we get past him?’ He just doesn’t make enough mistakes … (The chasers) have two problems - he doesn’t make mistakes and you can’t make any.”
Hicks: “The inevitable. And there’s just a few athletes in any sport through the years that have been able to produce that kind of feeling. Scheffler is the latest.”
Rich Lerner on the field chasing Scheffler: “As it was with Tiger, they are trying to slow down a 747 with a butterfly net.”
Kisner: “Those two par putts on 11 and 14 are as big as any of the birdies.”
Terry Gannon: “You’re watching a guy who is so in control of every facet of his game, and for the rest of the field trying to chase and you’re making a run…but you look up and it’s that name on the top of the leaderboard.”
Hicks on his up-and-down from the thick greenside rough on No. 11: “His best par save of the week and one of the best we’ve ever seen.”
Gannon on Scheffler’s pulled approach shot on No. 11 into the greenside rough: “Where did that come from?”
Brad Faxon: “Haven’t seen him hit a shot like that this week. He can fade a short iron with ease…Definitely a little fat there, much steeper than it needed to be.”
Gannon on Scheffler’s par-saving putt on 11: “What can’t the man do?”
Faxon: “He’s not human. Worst iron shot he had this week…That (putt) comes from inside 15 feet. That’s the part of his game that’s most improved with his putting, and demoralizing for the field.”
ON RORY MCILROY (-8, T-5th)
Hicks on McIlroy’s 48-foot eagle putt on 12: “We said he was looking to reignite his round, and he just lit the fuse.”
Mackay on the crowd’s reaction to McIlroy’s eagle putt: “We may be a mile away from McIlroy at this point in time, but we heard that like it was next door. That was something to behold from where we are.”
John Wood: “For everything that he’s done in the game, I bet there haven’t been many more enjoyable rounds than this for Rory.”
Mike Tirico on the crowd at the 18th hole watching McIlroy: “This is my 27th Open sitting at the 18th hole, and this feels like Sunday at the end with Tiger or someone else like that. We’ve been watching folks for an hour climb every mound, every hump, every bump just to be in position to watch Rory coming through. Both sides of the fairway, this has got to be some scene from the fairway…It is really one of those special moments in a championship that has over a century and a half of history. Rory back at home has brought a wonderful scene, and it may even be better tomorrow.”
Tirico on fans in Northern Ireland: “They will yell his name probably 10,000 times around here today – and that’s not hyperbole.”
Hicks: “Three birdies in the first four holes has this crowd whipped up into a frenzy. Every shot, every step – serenaded. These roars are reverberating around Portrush.”
Tirico on McIlroy’s birdie on No. 1: “Good morning, let’s go! An ideal start for McIlroy.”
Curt Byrum on his birdie on No. 1: “Let’s go is right – get that crowd fired up, just what they wanted to see...and Jordan Smith has a lot to do with that, he gave him a great read.”
Wood on McIlroy’s driver: “I feel like this club is the key to his day today. He hasn’t driven it great this week. If he can get the driver going today, look out.”
ON MATT FITZPATRICK (-9, 3rd)
Hicks on Fitzpatrick’s third round: “You grind all day like Fitzpatrick has. You get close to Scheffler, you feel like you’re closing ground, and then you just lose a little bit. And then best player in this era just kind of goes by you.”
Chamblee: “After watching Fitz the past few days, may be a lot of people heading out to the golf course tomorrow trying this cross-handed chipping action.”
ON ROYAL PORTRUSH
Kisner: “Just a true gem here at Portrush and it shows the best players in the world playing the best golf here at this venue.”
Hicks: “You hear it overused, right? ‘You’ve got to use every shot in the bag.’ We hear that almost on a regular basis at the big-time golf courses, but it’s no more true here.”
--NBC SPORTS--
