Woods wins Player Impact Programme, collects R259m bonus
Tiger Woods has won the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Programme (PIP) for a second consecutive year and with it the $15m (R259m) bonus given to the winner, according to results obtained by Reuters.
Woods has played only nine rounds of golf across three majors in 2022, but remains the game’s top draw as defined by the PIP, which measures a player’s popularity based on five criteria like media mentions and broadcast exposure.
World number one Rory Mcilroy was rewarded with $12m (R207m) as the runner-up and Jordan Spieth ($9m), Justin Thomas ($7.5m) and Jon Rahm ($6m) rounded out the top five, according to the memo sent to players.
Woods finished first in four of the five PIP categories, the only exception coming in “TV Sponsor Exposure,” which measures the amount of time a player’s sponsor logos appear on screen during weekend PGA Tour telecasts.
Woods played only three weekend rounds in 2022, two at the Masters and one at the PGA Championship.
The PIP was implemented in 2021 as a way to reward members who, through a series of metrics, are shown to drive the most positive interest in the PGA Tour.
The programme was expanded in 2022 to include the top 20 players and $100m (R1.7bn) in total payouts, up from 10 players and $40m (R690m) in 2021.
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler ($5.5m) was sixth on the list while the next four players — Xander Schauffele, US Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris and Tony
Finau — each earned $5m.
Collin Morikawa, Shane Lowry, Kevin Kisner, Max Homa and Billy Horschel were 11th-15th, respectively, and each earned $3m.
Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland rounded out the top 20 and will each get $2m. Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Young and Sam Burns
— who would have qualified under the slightly modified criteria being used for 2023 — were added to the list and will each get $2m. Meanwhile, former champion Hideki Matsuyama had withdrawn from next week’s Tiger Woods-hosted Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas due to an injury, a tournament official said.
Japan’s Matsuyama, who won the limited-field event in 2016, has suffered a number of injuries in 2022 and most recently withdrew from the Houston Open 10 days ago, citing a neck injury after opening his third round with a fourover-par 39.
The decision to sit out the December 1-4 Hero World Challenge at Albany marks the sixth time this season the 2021 Masters winner has pulled out of a PGA Tour event because of injury. He withdrew from The Players Championship in March before the first round with a lingering back injury.
He then withdrew from the Texas Open a week before his Masters title defence.