Three players who have earned plenty of PIP money the last four years.
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Goodbye, good riddance and RIP to the PIP.
Sort of.
The Player Impact Program, introduced in 2021 as a means to reward the 10 most impactful golfers on the PGA Tour in a given year, is shutting down. It caused a stir early on, ironically creating plenty of headlines on its own in its first year. (Could winning the PIP … help win you the PIP?) But by the end of its run it was just another annual prize the most popular golfers could add to their haul, tacking on millions to their already tens of millions.
In fairness to its organizers, the PIP was never supposed to be public. Each year’s results were never supposed to be shared, tweeted or written about. But, like anything sent to players in an official memo or email, ultimately leaked. So the PIP got out, and it became something a bit bigger than it ever needed to be.
Why? Because of us. The PIP always said more about us — our viewing habits and what (or who) we consume — than it did the players, who were just being … themselves. Just take a look at what we learned over the years.
1. The PIP was never a social-media contest
When news of the PIP was first reported — in what amounted to a bombshell from Eamon Lynch at Golfweek — much of the reaction became fixed on its inclusion of social media metrics. The thought that pro golfers could win some annual monetary prize for the engagement and size of their social following rubbed many people the wrong way.
But that’s on them.
While the PIP was in many ways an assessment of popularity it was rarely about sending more tweets and engaging with platforms. The PIP aggregated a ranking from five different categories, inclusive of Google search rank and the amount of seconds a player flashed across television screens. Only one of those categories was devoted to social media engagement, and only during the first two years of the PIP. The player who ranked 1st in that category back in 2021 was Bubba Watson, which helped him land the 10th and final payout position ($3 million). But soon social media measurements were replaced with surveys focused on fan awareness of players.
2. The PIP was a chess piece from the start
The timing of the PIP’s launch is more obvious now than it seemed back then. It arrived in the beginning of 2021, just as plans for a “Saudi golf league” were gaining momentum. On paper, it was a promise to the biggest names in golf: stay here, do your thing, and you’ll get paid for it… to the tune of millions.
Nice move, right? But it didn’t seem to work. Ultimately the Saudi-backed league that launched promised riches that outweighed anything the PIP could offer. Did players who left for LIV use potential PIP earnings in contract negotiations with LIV? They would have been smart to do so. You’d have to ask Bryson DeChambeau, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka. All five jumped to LIV soon after finishing in the PIP’s initial top 10.
3. The value of the chess piece evolved over time
The fact that the PGA Tour went so far as to look at its 200+ person membership and tell them which members were the most important to its popularity didn’t feel great for everyone at the time. But oddly it became a legal asset.
Rewind to August 2022, when a number of LIV golfers filed a lawsuit against the PGA Tour for restraint of trade and anticompetitive practices. Three of those golfers took the Tour into an injunction hearing where both sides were forced to present about the state of their competition. LIV Golf argued that the Tour was illegally making life difficult for them. The Tour pulled out its PIP ranking and showed, Hey, you’ve snatched up HALF of our most impactful players. You’re clearly doing just fine. Much as it must have hurt the Tour to admit it on the record in a courtroom — while the entire industry was watching — it was arguments like that that told Judge Beth Freeman that LIV Golf and its players were not being restrained as much as they were asserting.
The PIP chess piece continued to evolve in the months that followed, with the hope of keeping more players from jumping ship. In 2023, the program doubled in size — up to $100 million, paid out to 20 players — to help ensure that nos. 14, 17 and 20 were going to appreciate some funds for their impact (and loyalty), too. Did it keep any of them from jumping ship? You’d have to ask them.
Most of the reporting around PIP standings over the years was over-simplified, just regurgitating the list. But the interesting stuff was in always in the details, buried in the memos sent by PGA Tour executives year after year. Beyond the standings, the Tour always showed the actual figures (to ten thousandths of a fraction) of popularity, Google searches, golf fan awareness, TV time, etc. And Rory McIlroy simply dominates golf coverage.
McIlroy twice has ranked first in what is called “Meltwater Mentions,” a measurement of the number of unique articles — essentially news coverage — that mention a player’s name. Favorites for the Masters? Heartbreak in contention? Winning tournaments that matter? Founding a simulator golf league? Opining on the future of the game? Rory McIlroy checks so, so, so many boxes of golf news coverage. He also speaks out on important topics, pivoting the conversation and incurring more coverage. He comments about his play after almost every round, stars in the Ryder Cup and ultimately doesn’t shy away from any on-course element of his life. (It certainly doesn’t hurt that he is extremely media literate and shares good relationships with numerous media members.)
To be written about more than Tiger Woods is impressive, and McIlroy accomplished it twice. The two times McIlroy didn’t rank first, he finished second … behind Woods.
5. No golfer will ever be more famous than Tiger Woods
Did we need the PIP to tell us this? That the greatest golfer who ever lived reached and sustained a level of fame no other golfer will ever touch? No. But it was exactly the sort of thing the PIP reiterated year after year, particularly as Woods’ on-course appearances have scaled back.
Woods has been the most-Googled golfer in the world every year of the PIP’s existence. He has had the highest fan-awareness rank every year, too. Not shocked? That’s okay. But it goes to show why people care about the PNC Championship and the Hero World Challenge and why they care more about the Genesis Invitational in February. Because that is the new order of events that matter outside of the major championships. They are the events when the most popular golfer in the world, by a wide margin, tends to play. And the TV ratings back it up.
6. Jordan Spieth is still Jordan Spieth
Despite his play sagging, his wrist hurting and the forecast of his career crawling, Jordan Spieth remains a massive asset to the PGA Tour. Spieth landed in the 5th position on the 2024 PIP ranking, one spot behind Xander Schauffele and one ahead of Collin Morikawa. One of those players had the greatest, most visible year of his life, another is a 2-time major winner who continues playing some of the best golf of his life, and the last one plummeted out of the top 50 in the world ranking. That last one is Spieth.
His popularity — largely built on rapid ascendence to begin his career — has created a super high floor. He was Googled less than Schauffele in 2024, but more than Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. He was on TV less than other players in the top 10, but still on TV a lot because he’s a fascinating golfer to watch. He may have had the literal opposite season to Scottie Scheffler, but fan awareness surveys ranked Spieth as more well-known than Scheffler. Shrug your shoulders at that, or recognize that it likely means more people show up to local Dallas Tour events hoping to watch Spieth catch some magic.
With that in mind, allow me a brief thought about tonight’s launch of TGL, the tech-infused simulator golf league. While the league has landed commitments from many of the best players in the world, it notably did not get that from Spieth, nor Scheffler, two players who finished in the top 5 of the 2024 PIP. Both players noted how they would rather not add extra travel — they both live in Dallas — to an already busy spring schedule while caring for young families. It makes plenty of sense. But the league won’t include the star power of two of the game’s biggest figures. That matters.
7. The PIP isn’t totally going away
Though its relevance has faded over the years, something similar to the PIP will remain in place for the PGA Tour. Equity grants to the sum of $100 million will be issued to Tour members annually as part of the Player Equity Program, instituted last spring following the multi-billion incorporation of PGA Tour Enterprises. Twenty-ish players will receive those grants for their performance in the preceding year, the previous three years, as well as their rank in metrics used during the PIP Era. In other words, it won’t be all off-the-course stuff that kicks future millions to the strongest performers on the PGA Tour, like it has felt at times with the PIP. But it will still be valuable for players to create positive headlines, be Googled a lot and to make golf fans (and non-golf fans) aware of themselves. In other words, Tiger Woods will likely still continue reaping equity grants in years to come, regardless of how many tournaments he plays.
One issue — at least from my perspective — is we are unlikely to hear about these popularity, awareness and impact scores moving forward. The Tour has explicitly told players to not publicly discuss the amount of equity they receive from PGA Tour Enterprises, so it would be surprising to see a ranking of this sort released (or leaked!) at the end of 2025. No more PIP insights. But we had a good run.
Sean Zak is a senior writer and author of Searching in St. Andrews, which followed his travels in Scotland during the most pivotal summer in the game’s history.
