Woods finale drew

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tiger Woods' failed attempt to win his seventh straight PGA Tour event got higher ratings than any U.S. Open or British Open in the past 15 years. Final-round coverage of the Buick

Friday, February 18th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tiger Woods' failed attempt to win his seventh straight PGA Tour event got higher ratings than any U.S. Open or British Open in the past 15 years. Final-round coverage of the Buick Invitational on Sunday got an 8.0 rating and 18 share, Nielsen Media Research said Thursday, topping the NBA All-Star game (6.9/12) on NBC later Sunday night. It was the highest rating for golf other than the PGA Championship and the Masters since the final round of the Bob Hope Classic got an 8.3 in 1985. The rating was up 27 percent from last year, which got a 6.3/15as Woods won. Saturday's rating of 4.0/10 was up 38 percent from last year's third round, which got a 2.9/8.

CBS is averaging a 4.0/9 for six weekends of golf, up 18 per cent from last year's 3.4/8. The figure does not include coverage of the final round of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which was pushed back to a Monday (Feb. 7) because of rain. The rating is the percentage of TV households in the United States tuned to a program, and each point represents 1,008,000homes. The share is the percentage watching a broadcast among those TVs on at the time.