How to watch the BMW PGA Championship: Watch England’s premier golfing event from anywhere in the world
Read on below to find out how you can watch the BMW PGA Championship in the UK, US and elsewhere
The fourth Rolex Series event of the DP World Tour (the current name of the PGA European Tour due to sponsorship reasons), the BMW PGA Championship, will take place 8 – 11 September on the historical West Course at Wentworth, Surrey. UK fans who missed out on tickets to the sold out event can watch from home via a Sky Sports subscription or a NOW Sports Membership, while Stateside golf fans can catch all the action on the Golf Channel via Golf Pass. If you’re likely to be away during this period – lucky you, if so – and still want follow every putt and punt, you can employ the services of a high-quality VPN, such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN, to ensure that geo-blocking restrictions don’t hamper your access to your sporting subscriptions.
With over £5,000,000 in prize money, as well as precious leaderboard points up for grabs, this event promises to be as fiercely competitive as any Major. All eyes will be on Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, who leads the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai leaderboard, with fellow tournament entrants, Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick and Belgium’s Thomas Pieters, hot on his heels. Other notable names competing at the three-day stroke play event include Irish golfer Shane Lowry, Englishman Lee Westwood, and Spaniard Jon Rahm.
Recent statements by Rory McIlroy have added extra drama and intrigue to this already prestigious and exciting sporting event, with the Northern Irish sportsman condemning the inclusion of golfers from the Saudi-Arabian backed, breakaway circuit LIV, at the event. McIlroy has said that it “doesn’t sit right” with him, and that he’ll “find it hard to stomach” that pending decisions surrounding their suspensions from the DP World Tour, LIV golfers such as Talor Gooch, Ian Poulter, and Lee Westwood will be allowed to compete alongside him at the tournament.
So, with cash, tour points, and the very integrity of the sport itself on the line, anyone with even a passing interest in golf won’t want to miss this year’s event at Wentworth. Keep reading for all the options on how to watch the BMW PGA Championship live this September.
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How to watch the BMW PGA Championship in the UK: Sky Sports and NOW
UK fans who won’t be making the journey to Surrey to see it live can catch all the action on Sky Sports. Thursday’s action will be broadcast from 9am on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Golf, with the subsequent weekend’s play being shown daily on Sky Golf. Upgrading to Sky Sports from a base package currently costs £25 extra a month, while new customers signing up to Sky can currently get Sky TV and Sky Sports just £44/mth for the first 18 months.
If a whole TV package is a little bit overkill, a more flexible option is signing up to Sky-backed streaming service NOW, whose Sports Membership allows you to watch all Sky Sports channels on a range of up to 6 devices. A monthly NOW Sports Membership costs £34/mth, with their Sports Day Membership, a once-off, single day subscription, allowing you to stream Sky Sports channels for 24 hours and costing a flat £12.
How to watch the BMW PGA Championship in the US: GolfPass+
US viewers looking to get on this hot ticket European event can do so via NBC’s Golf Channel, which can be accessed as part of various cable packages or subscription services.
If you don’t already have access to the Golf Channel, the best value way to watch is to sign up for Golf Pass+. A year’s subscription costs $99 and allows you to stream the Golf Channel, mentoring videos from the pros, as well as golf-related shows and media on a number of devices from the Golf Pass app.
What’s more, included in this bundle subscription are all the perks of sister-service Golf Now, which gives you a number of on course benefits, included waived convenience fees for booking tee times, as well as twelve months of free access to NBC’s streaming service Peacock, which allows you to stream live sports, Peacock Originals such as Bel Air, and top quality movies and TV shows like The Northman and The Office.
How to watch the BMW PGA Championship from anywhere: Use a good quality VPN
If you happen to be out of the country during the period the BMW PGA Championship takes place – away on a golf trip perhaps – you may find that pesky geoblocking restrictions prevent you from accessing your regular streaming services. A handy workaround for this nuisance is to get yourself access to a quality VPN service.
A VPN is a privacy tool, designed to allow you to browse the web securely and anonymously – meaning your browsing history and data is safe from the prying eyes of your ISP, the government, and cyber-nasties such as scammers and hackers. Part of how a VPN does this is by rerouting your traffic through different servers across the globe, and it’s this rerouting that allows you to ‘spoof’ your location and gain access to streaming services that may be regionally restricted from your current location.
For a more in-depth explanation, check our full-length VPN explainer. If you’re intrigued and want to check out some VPNs, two of our favourites are reviewed in short below:
ExpressVPN is a quality VPN, offering top-tier speeds and security. The company, based in the British Virgin Islands, beyond the remit of the UK, US and EU governments, operates an audited no-logs policy, meaning it is independently verified that your data is not being stored in any fashion. Security aside, the VPN has also performed well in our stress tests, spoofing reliably and handling huge streaming loads – including multiple 4K videos from US servers – with aplomb. ExpressVPN also offers 24/7 customer service as well as a money back guarantee. Expert Reviews readers who sign up using the link below can avail of three free months of ExpressVPN. For more information, check out our full length ExpressVPN review
NordVPN is a well established favourite at Expert Reviews, having received five stars and a Best Buy award in our full length NordVPN review. The company, based out of Panama, also operates an independently audited no-logs policy, and in terms of spoofing options, offers users the option of over 5,500 servers spread across 60 countries. As well as reliable spoofing, NordVPN offers excellent streaming and download speeds, which you can avail of as you use the service across six devices. NordVPN also offers 24/7 customer support, a 30-day money back guarantee and competitively priced plans for users who sign up for longer contracts.