The PIP bonus pool was instituted in 2021 to reward players who boosted engagement and publicity for the tour. Ostensibly a response to some of the lucrative deals rumored to be coming from the then-Premier Golf League, the inaugural programme somewhat backfired: five of the 10 winners in 2021 — Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson — ultimately left the tour for LIV Golf.

However, tweaks to the PIP were announced at this year’s Tour Championship to broaden its scope. After spreading out $40 million to those on last year’s list, the 2022 PIP pool has increased to $100 million in payouts. The list has also doubled from 10 players to 20. Perhaps the most consequential alteration is what making the PIP list does for a player going forward. In 2023, the tour is moving to a new schedule, one that features 12 elevated events, in addition the majors and the Players Championship, and a commitment from the game’s “top players” to compete in at least 20 tournaments. A “top player” will now be defined by the tour as an individual who finishes in the top 20 in the PIP, meaning making the list grants invites into the tour’s biggest events featuring the biggest purses.

Below is the list of PIP winners, along with their bonus for making the list.
1. Tiger Woods $15,000,000
2. Rory McIlroy $12,000,000
3. Jordan Spieth $9,000,000
4. Justin Thomas $7,500,000
5. Jon Rahm $6,000,000
6. Scottie Scheffler $5,500,000
7. Xander Schauffele $5,000,000
8. Matt Fitzpatrick $5,000,000
9. Will Zalatoris $5,000,000
10. Tony Finau $5,000,000
11. Collin Morikawa $3,000,000
12. Shane Lowry $3,000,000
13. Kevin Kisner $3,000,000
14. Max Homa $3,000,000
15. Billy Horschel $3,000,000
16. Rickie Fowler $2,000,000
17. Adam Scott $2,000,000
18. Jason Day $2,000,000
19. Patrick Cantlay $2,000,000
20. Viktor Hovland $2,000,000

The tour used five measurements for putting together the list: Internet searches, the number of unique news articles that include a player’s name, duration that a player’s sponsor logos appeared on screen during Saturday and Sunday PGA Tour broadcasts, a player’s general awareness score among broad US population, and social media score that considers a player’s reach, conversation and engagement metrics. Along with Google Search, Meltwater and Nielsen measurements, the 2023 list is adding general population and fan awareness criteria.

Incorporating the changes to the formula for 2023, the PIP ranking was also run using the new measurement criteria. Three other players appeared in the top 20 with the modified criteria — Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Young and Sam Burns. Each also will receive a $2 million payment and he eligible for PIP events.

Any player eligible for PIP payments must fulfill three additional requirements to be paid in full. They include:

• 1) Play in a mutually agreed-upon PIP Designated Tournament
• 2) Participate in a mutually agreed-upon PIP Service Event;
• 3) Fulfill the Mandatory Participation Requirement as outlined in the PGA Tour Tournament Regulations handbook

Players will receive PIP payments in two installments. The first 25 per cent will be paid with the Sentry Tournament of Champions purse payment, and the remaining 75 per cent will be paid once a player completes the three obligations.

Woods played just nine rounds in 2022, although his return at the Masters and possible goodbye to St Andrews at the Open were among the stories of the year. Woods was also instrumental in leading a group of players that enacted sweeping reforms to the tour in response to the ongoing threat from LIV Golf.

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The post Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth headline 23 winners from $100 million Player Impact Programme bonus pool appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
Not all podcast guests are created equal. Pat Perez, who is among the best-unfiltered voices in professional golf, is living proof of that.

The three-time PGA Tour winner joined us on this week’s episode of “Be Right,” where his gift of gab was on full display ahead of the Tito’s Shorties Classic Pitch and Putt Match, which will air at 7 p.m. ET on Golf Channel Wednesday evening. The pre-recorded event, which was filmed in Austin, Texas, features Perez, Harry Higgs, Joel Dahmen and Harold Varner III playing a game of Wolf for charity. Tito’s, the official vodka of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, will donate $10,000 for each point a player wins to their charity of choice, with an overall donation totalling over $500,000.

Perez, who served as an analyst in the first edition of “The Match” between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, called the Shorties Classic “my favourite event I’ve ever done.”

“I didn’t even really know what to expect when I got there,” he added. “But, I swear, it was one of the best events I’ve ever had. Obviously dealing with Harold [Varner III] and Joel [Dahmen] and Harry [Higgs], I mean, we had a blast. We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, and it all just kind of fell into place. It was awesome. It’s just too bad it wasn’t longer.”

Fortunately for us, Perez didn’t just discuss the Shorties Classic, which golf fans should definitely tune into on Wednesday night. The 46-year-old also told us why he can’t wait to turn 50 and he revealed the one (or possibly two) pairs of shoes missing from his legendary collection. He also dished out some spicy takes on the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, which Perez described as “horsesh–.” Not surprisingly, it was one of the better interviews we’ve had the pleasure of conducting on “Be Right.” And yes, we did preview the Sentry Tournament of Champions, too.

Please, have a listen to our first full episode of 2022 below:

The post Pat Perez on why the PIP is ‘horsesh–,’ why he can’t wait to turn 50 and the one pair of shoes missing from his legendary collection appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

From air hockey table reviews to important polls on Mexican fast food to even a photo of the split pants he unknowingly was practising his putting in, there’s a lot of good stuff there. (Actually, the Mexican fast-food is particularly funny because the only prior Loop post we can find about Nitties involves him crediting burriots for a great round.) But the Korn Ferry Tour winner saved his best for Thursday.

Nitties put together a hilarious video on what long road trips are like that features him singing/wailing along to the likes of everyone from Whitney Houston to George Strait. Check it out:

Long road trips be like.. ????@AmericanIdol @Beyonce pic.twitter.com/UtdBfAl4M8

— James Nitties (@JamesNitties23) May 27, 2021

Move over, Brooks and Bryson. Seriously, give this guy all the PIP money right now.

At the very least, give him more follows on Twitter. How does he only have 6,500 followers right now? That’s a travesty.

The post Give this past PGA Tour player all the PIP bonus money for his hilarious road trip singing video appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Feinstein
There are many more questions than answers right now on the subject of what the PGA Tour is calling its Player Impact Program, which will be known going forward as the PIP.

It’s worth noting that the tour did not publicly announce the program, which will pay out $40 million to 10 players deemed to do the most to boost publicity and engagement for the tour. The news instead was broken by Golfweek and then confirmed by tour officials.

And so the first question: Where is the tour getting the $40 million? At the moment, there’s no corporate sponsor and there’s not likely to be one, if only because Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the tour dating to 2007, would probably lose his mind if PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan stood up and proudly announced a new multi-million-dollar corporate partnership in order to pay 10 players millions of dollars.

As it is, one wonders how FedEx, whose contract with the tour runs through 2027, is going to react to a new program that rewards players for being popular. Flawed as the FedEx Cup playoff system is, the hundreds of millions the company has invested has gotten the top players to keep playing through the end of the summer after the major championships are over. That was the whole point when then-commissioner Tim Finchem convinced FedEx to sign on in the first place. FedEx and the PGA Tour are now so closely entwined that the FedEx logo is embedded in the floor of the lobby inside the tour’s new multi-million-dollar headquarters.

It’s worth noting that the tour laid off about 50 employees last summer in the midst of the pandemic. Now apparently it has $40 million to spend on 10 of its wealthiest players. It’s also worth noting that the tour recently stated it would not move the Tour Championship out of Atlanta in the wake of the Georgia legislature passing a blatantly racist voting-rights bill because leaving the area would harm local charities. Why couldn’t the tour take a chunk of that $40 million, give it to the charities it benefits in the Atlanta region and move the tournament someplace else, as Major League Baseball did when it announced it was moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta soon after the bill was made law?

There lies the next question: Why spend $40 million this way? Aren’t there so many other things the money could can be used for other than handing out millions to a small group of men who are already multi-millionaires? The tour constantly cites its charitable giving—which is considerable—but could certainly use all or some of that $40 million to give more to charity. There’s no such thing as enough when it comes to charities, especially nowadays in the wake of the pandemic.

The tour could also use some of the money to increase purses at some of its lower-profile tournaments, many having been impacted by the World Golf Championship events and the playoffs. Right now, there are four major championships, three playoff events, four WGCs and the Players Championship that stars are expected to play. That’s 12 tournaments, meaning a top player only needs to play three more times to meet his minimum of 15 events per year. The PIP does nothing to encourage the tour’s stars to play in more tournaments, or tournaments that could use their needle-moving power.

It seems obvious the PIP is a reaction to the threat of the proposed Premier Golf League, which was first publicly discussed a year ago. The PGL model calls for 18 events in a season for huge money (reportedly $240 million) each year. But despite the financial enticements, a handful of top-ranked players, notable Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka among them, said they weren’t interested, stymieing the tour’s launch.

The very idea of the PGL clearly scared the tour, and the PIP appears to be a direct response to that concept: If we give top players millions for doing nothing on top of the millions they are already making, they won’t be tempted by the PGL. It’s an overreaction to something that doesn’t even exist at the moment.

That said, it’s worth considering who might be among the 10 players in line this year to receive the $40 million in bonuses the tour is going to hand out.

Presumably, Tiger Woods is No. 1 on the list (presumably because the tour hasn’t made any ranking public) even though he is recovering from his horrific car accident. Woods is regularly mentioned on social-media platforms that the tour proposes to use to measure “impact” and he still receives more attention than anyone who is actually playing golf right now.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Years ago, when Woods was the No. 1 player in the world by leaps and bounds, Tommy Roy, NBC’s longtime golf executive producer, told me that a survey the network had done asked viewers this question: “Would you rather watch any other player hitting a shot or watch Tiger Woods leaning on his bag waiting for his turn to play?” According to Roy, 45 percent of viewers said they’d rather watch Woods talk club selection with then-caddie Steve Williams.

Woods is 45 now and no one knows if he will ever play in a PGA Tour event again, but there are still legions of fans who would rather read one of his tweets than watch Stewart Cink win at Hilton Head—all due respect to Cink, whose comeback story is truly inspiring.

Now, guess who probably should be No. 2 on the list, if popularity is the measure? How about Charlie Woods. OK, he’s not eligible (yet) but think about the interest his presence at the PNC Challenge last December created among the media, TV, print, digital, social and otherwise. Of course, I’m kidding that Charlie should be paid for the engagement he helped bring the tour, but I bring him up to make the point that paying competitive athletes (or their children) based on popularity is ludicrous.

You know who else is clearly in the top 10, perhaps the top five? Rickie Fowler, currently ranked 109th in the world and 128th on the FedEx points list. Remember, this isn’t about playing well, it’s about being popular. Fowler hasn’t been seen in a late group on Sunday in a long time, but he’s still on TV selling product non-stop and has a strong social-media presence. Plus, he’s a genuinely nice guy. Everyone loves Rickie, regardless of his struggles inside the ropes.

Bryson DeChambeau, aka Popeye, the sailor man, will certainly make the list in part because he won the U.S. Open last September, but at least as much because he now looks like a young Arnold Schwarznegger and can compete with the long drive guys for length.

Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson (yes, at almost 51) Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka are likely to crack the list. Adam Scott? Perhaps given his appeal among men and women. Patrick Reed? Not so much unless it is during a Ryder Cup week and American fans are chanting, “USA,” every time he holes a putt. Then we love you Patrick. Next week, not so much.

What about Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama? If this was Japan, he would be No. 1 by a massive margin. But it’s not. Collin Morikawa, the PGA champion and the best young player in golf? Maybe, maybe not. He’s just a superb player, an extremely bright guy and personable as they come. But he’s not big on social media.

The larger point isn’t so much who will or will not be on the list. It’s the question again of why spend $40 million to make a bunch of very rich guys richer? To get them to sign more autographs or go on social media more often? Seriously? It’s flailing at an opponent who doesn’t even exist at the moment. It is just about the worst idea since New Coke. With luck, it will go away just about as quickly.

The post The $40 million question surrounding the PGA Tour’s new bonus program appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.