As at this year's Masters, Tiger Woods was not a final-round factor. Unlike at the Masters, the finish was not scintillating. Nevertheless, according to Sports Business Daily,  the overnight Nielsen ratings for NBC's airing of Sunday's final round of the Players Championship handily beat the 2008 numbers. The telecast registered a 4.1 rating and a 10 share for Henrik Stenson's cakewalk, topping by 20.6% the final round of last year's tournament, which an ailing Woods did not enter, but which did feature the sudden-death playoff between Paul Goydos and eventual champion Sergio Garcia. Moreover, the '09 final round achieved the event's best showing since 2004, when Adam Scott won.

Perhaps equally impressive, the Players' final round rating matched the number for ABC's competing telecast of the NBA Western Conference semifinal Game 4, in which the Houston Rockets took a 29-point lead over the Los Angeles Lakers into the fourth quarter and, like Stenson, coasted to victory.