Tiger Woods has won the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Programme (PIP) for 2022 despite having played just nine events during the season.

Woods won $15m for topping the list, which is designed to reward players who boosted engagement and publicity for the PGA Tour.

First introduced in 2021 as a means of offering extra cash to the game’s most influential players, five of the players who appeared in the top 10 of the PIP last year – Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson – have left to join LIV Golf.

While last year’s PIP bonus pool offered $40 million to the top 10 players, the 2022 PIP pool has increased to $100m and has doubled its reach from 10 players to 20.

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 TV broadcasts, a player’s general awareness score among the US population, and social media score that considers a player’s reach, conversation and engagement metrics.

Rory McIlroy, who won the FedExCup, took second place, which comes with a $12m pay out, while Jordan Spieth took third, which comes with a $9m bonus. Victor Hovland finished in 20th spot and earned himself an extra $2m on top of the $4.68m he earned in prize money for the 2021-22 season.

Rickie Fowler, who placed 16th in the PIP list, had just three top-25 finishes in the 2021-22 season and finished 133rd in the money list with just over $1m in prize money, but he trebled his earnings with a $2m PIP pay out thanks to his popularity on social media. His Twitter account boasts over 1.6m followers.

Reigning US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick boosted his season’s earnings of $7.5m with a $5m bonus for finishing in eighth place, while 2019 Open Championship winner Shane Lowry finished 12th in the PIP list and almost doubled his season’s earnings from the PGA Tour with a $3m bonus on top of the $3.6m he collected in prize money.

Making the top 20 in this year’s PIP list will have major ramifications for those players in 2023, as the PGA Tour’s new schedule of 12 elevated events will require top-20 PIP players to compete in at least 20 tournaments across the season.

PGA TOUR 2022 PIP winners

1. Tiger Woods $15m
2. Rory McIlroy $12m
3. Jordan Spieth $9m
4. Justin Thomas $7.5m
5. Jon Rahm $6m
6. Scottie Scheffler $5.5m
7. Xander Schauffele $5m
8. Matt Fitzpatrick $5m
9. Will Zalatoris $5m
10. Tony Finau $5m
11. Collin Morikawa $3m
12. Shane Lowry $3m
13. Kevin Kisner $3m
14. Max Homa $3m
15. Billy Horschel $3m
16. Rickie Fowler $2m
17. Adam Scott $2m
18. Jason Day $2m
19. Patrick Cantlay $2m
20. Viktor Hovland $2m

Although outside the top 20, Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Young and Sam Burns will also will receive a $2 million payment and be eligible for PIP events in 2023.

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Tiger Woods winning a golf competition in 2022 would have been a remarkable thought at the start of the year, but he’ll have to settle for a big win off the course. Woods has finished first in the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program for the second consecutive year, this time coming in just ahead of his friend and business partner, Rory McIlroy.

Woods will collect $15 million for this acheivement while McIlroy takes home $12 million. Just below them in the rankings is another pair of good friends in Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas as the undefeated Presidents Cup duo finished third and fourth, respectively, with Jon Rahm rounding out the top five. The top four are scheduled to play in The Match VII on Dec. 10 in a 12-hole exhibition to benefit relief efforts for Hurricane Ian.

Woods took first last year even though he didn’t play a single competitive round of golf on the PGA Tour. That first-place finish was worth $10 million; this year’s prize was slightly more at $15 million, as the overall purse for the PIP was raised from $40 million in 2021 to $100 million in 2022, according to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan earlier this year at the Tour Championship. 

Woods only played nine total rounds in 2022 and ranked 41st in Nielsen Brand Exposure which essentially measures the amount of TV time a player receives during weekend coverage. Woods was able to overcome this shortcoming by ranking first in the four other categories.

2022 PIP Scoring Criteria

• Google: Google search data
• Meltwater: Mentions in the media
• Nielsen: Exposure on weekend TV coverage 
• Q-Score: Awareness among the general public
• MVP Index: Social media engagement and reach

The Tour has upped its prize money across the board this year and into 2023. Not only did it take the PIP fund from $40 million to $100 million, but it also expanded the pool of recipients from 10 to 20, raised several PGA Tour purses to $20 million and continues to invest in the FedEx Cup prize fund (it moved from $15 million a year ago to $18 million this year).

This is welcomed news for two-time major winner Collin Morikawa. The last man out in 2021, Morikawa remained in the 11th spot in the rankings, but unlike last year, will be rewarded a payout amounting to $3 million. Social media guru Max Homa, fan-favorite Rickie Fowler and Australian heartthrob Adam Scott all check in within the 11-20 range in the standings. 

2022 PIP Results, Payouts

Players who would have qualified under 2023 criteria

What’s new in 2023?

Matsuyama, Young and Burns may not have cracked the top 20 in the 2022 PIP, but the PGA Tour went ahead and wrote them a check anyways. All three would have been inside the magic number if the new criteria was in place, which limits the social media aspect of the scoring. The MVP Index and the Q-Score will be replaced by MARC Golf Fan Awareness and MARC General Population Awareness. These two new categories will serve as an easier way to measure a player’s popularity among adults and golf fans.

Why is the PIP important?

Outside of the influx of money to the PGA Tour’s top players, the PIP will be used as a key identifier moving forward. The top 20 players in the PIP this year will be expected to play the Tour’s new elevated schedule in 2023, which includes 13 non-majors with massive prize money and, ostensibly, all the top players in the world. 

This flood of cash was built to combat LIV Golf and the players who have left the PGA Tour for significant raises. Interestingly, one of LIV’s participants actually had one of the best takes about Tiger and the PIP I’ve seen. Pat Perez spoke about it at the Genesis Invitational way back in February when he was still part of the PGA Tour.

“It’s kind of a joke, but like I said, the PIP program’s kind of a joke,” said Perez. “Give Tiger the 40 [million] and say we owe you another zero. They owe Tiger $400, $500 million easily. There should be no program. Here you go, here’s 50, thanks for being incredible, here’s the money we owe you because you brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to us. Guys like me, to be able to make, you know, a couple million dollars a year is unbelievable and it’s only because of him. It’s only because of him, you know. So like I said, I’m in line with Tiger. But if Phil is pushing for more money towards our tour and fighting for it, that’d be great, but he seems to be so on the Saudi side that it’s hard to believe that he’s actually fighting for that.”

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Tiger Woods winning a golf competition in 2022 would have been a remarkable thought at the start of the year, but he’ll have to settle for a big win off the course. Woods has finished first in the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program for the second consecutive year, this time coming in just ahead of his friend and business partner, Rory McIlroy, according to the Associated Press.

Woods took first last year even though he didn’t play a single competitive round of golf on the PGA Tour. That first-place finish was worth $10 million; this one was significantly more, however, as the overall purse for the PIP was raised from $40 million in 2021 to $100 million in 2022, according to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan earlier this year at the Tour Championship. Woods only played nine total rounds in 2022, but each one of them received significant attention from everyone in the golf world, which is broadly the way one ranks highly in the annual PIP. He played four at the Masters, three at the PGA Championship and two at the Open Championship at St. Andrews.

The Tour has upped its prize money across the board this year and into 2023. Not only did it take the PIP fund from $40 million to $100 million, but it also expanded the pool of recipients from 10 to 20, raised several PGA Tour purses to $20 million and continues to invest in the FedEx Cup prize fund (it moved from $15 million a year ago to $18 million this year).

Woods was a lock to win this prize again from the moment he taunted Phil Mickelson on Twitter after Mickelson bragged that he had won the 2021 prize when in fact he had not.

According to the AP, McIlroy received $12 million for coming in second place, which puts his annual PGA Tour earnings at right around $40 million. This is significant because it’s nearly twice as much as the most he’s ever earned before. His previous career-high earnings came back in 2019 when he won the FedEx Cup and $15 million first prize to go with another $8 million in the regular season.

As was pointed out in the AP, there were two rubrics used this year to determine the PIP.

Two lists were in play — the original PIP plan that used such metrics as social media engagement, brand exposure, Q-rating, Internet searches and awareness, and the new criteria that leans more on media mentions and broadcast exposure than social media.

The PIP also was expanded to 20 players instead of 10, and using both lists for 2022, some 23 players are expected to receive bonus money from the $100 million program.

This influx of money was built to combat LIV Golf and the players who have left the PGA Tour for significant raises from moving from the Tour to LIV. Interestingly, one of LIV’s participants actually had one of the best takes about Tiger and the PIP I’ve seen. Pat Perez spoke about it at the Genesis Invitational way back in February when he was still part of the PGA Tour.

“It’s kind of a joke, but like I said, the PIP program’s kind of a joke,” said Perez. “Give Tiger the 40 [million] and say we owe you another zero. They owe Tiger $400, $500 million easily. There should be no program. Here you go, here’s 50, thanks for being incredible, here’s the money we owe you because you brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to us. Guys like me, to be able to make, you know, a couple million dollars a year is unbelievable and it’s only because of him. It’s only because of him, you know. So like I said, I’m in line with Tiger. But if Phil is pushing for more money towards our tour and fighting for it, that’d be great, but he seems to be so on the Saudi side that it’s hard to believe that he’s actually fighting for that.”

Mickelson finished second to Tiger in last year’s PIP.

The top 20 players in the PIP this year will be expected to play the Tour’s new elevated schedule in 2023, which includes 13 non-majors with massive prize money and, ostensibly, all the top players in the world. McIlroy and Woods were vital to creating the unity for this to come about during a meeting in Delaware during the FedEx Cup Playoffs earlier this year.

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