Tag: Player Impact Program

Here are the 5 things we learned from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s ‘State of the Tour’

For fans, the best news is that the top players have committed to play more often in the same events.

On Wednesday, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced several significant changes to the PGA Tour, which will continue to compensate the best golfers in the world handsomely.

For fans, the best news is that the top players have committed to play more often in the same events.

“I think if you’re trying to sell a product to TV and to sponsors and to try to get as many eyeballs on professional golf as possible, you need to at least let people know what they’re tuning in for,” Rory McIlroy said. “When I tune into a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game I expect to see Tom Brady throw a football. When I tune into a Formula 1 race I expect to see Lewis Hamilton in a car. Sometimes what’s happened on the PGA Tour is we all act independently and we sort of have our own schedules, and that means that we never really get together all that often.”

McIlroy added: “I think having the top players in the world playing together more often and competing against each other more often is what everyone wants. It’s what the players want. It’s what the fans want, most importantly.

“And I think once we solve for that, a lot of the rest of the stuff sort of takes care of itself.”

Here’s what we learned from Monahan’s press conference and the changes that will be implemented to the Tour going forward.

Tiger Woods beats Phil Mickelson for $8M PGA Tour Player Impact Program bonus; top 10 revealed

A pool of $40 million was distributed among 10 players, with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.

Tiger Woods has won the PGA Tour’s first annual Player Impact Program, the controversial $40 million scheme that rewards players on their ability to engage fans, regardless of on-course performance. Woods receives a bonus of $8 million, according to figures obtained by Golfweek Wednesday morning. 

Woods appeared at just one tournament in 2021, the PNC Championship in December, at which he finished second with his son, Charlie. Woods narrowly edged Phil Mickelson for the top prize. Mickelson receives $6 million for finishing second. 

In a December 29 Twitter post that was widely reported by media, Mickelson claimed to have won the PIP. At the time, the PGA Tour confirmed to Golfweek that the program didn’t conclude until Dec. 31 and that there was a lag time of several weeks in metrics being reported, which meant the impact of Woods’ appearance at the PNC Championship had still to be measured. 

The final PIP standings were audited by Grant Thornton and presented to the board of the PGA Tour at a meeting Tuesday night in Winter Park, Florida. A spokesperson for the PGA Tour declined to confirm the accuracy of the final standings to Golfweek. 

The Player Impact Program began in secret in January 2021. Its existence was revealed by Golfweek on April 20. The PIP uses a range of metrics designed to calculate a Tour player’s level of fan engagement, including their popularity in Google search, their Nielsen Brand Exposure rating, and Meltwater Mentions, among others.  

The creation of the PIP was seen as a reaction to the threat posed by the Saudi Arabian-funded Super Golf League, which is attempting to lure top players with guaranteed money. The PIP program represented the first time that the PGA Tour offered bonuses to members that were unrelated to their performance on the golf course. 

In 2022, the PIP program will grow to $50 million. 

Here’s a look at the entire list:

Twilight 9 podcast: PGA Tour golf is back and it’s time to preview the Sentry Tournament of Champions

Xander Schauffele is due, but is this the beginning of a career year for Jordan Spieth?

The best players in the world are back to playing golf this week. Life is good.

The PGA Tour is out in Hawaii for the annual gathering of the past year’s champions and this time around 38 of the 39 winners from last season have made the trip to Kapalua. Rory McIlroy (Wells Fargo Championship) is the only one who stayed at home.

Andy and I have tons to discuss this week on the show, starting with Phil Mickelson reportedly winning the $40 million Player Impact Program.

Then, it’s time to jump into the Sentry Tournament of Champions. We go over the key stats for the week, as well as Data Golf information, betting odds, and more.

Finally, we outline our favorite bets for the week. A name to keep an eye on — Xander Schauffele. His last win came at this event three years ago and he loves it here.

Download this week’s episode here: Apple | Spotify

Follow the guys on Twitter: Riley | Andy

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A few things to know about the PGA Tour schedule in 2022

New media-rights deals kick off in January and a few tournaments have new dates.

The calendar has flipped and we leave 2021 in the rearview mirror. Bring on 2022.

So what’s new and different in the new year for the PGA Tour?

There’s a new TV and streaming deal in place, so keep that smart TV remote handy. There’s a few tournaments with new dates on the calendar—but the Waste Management Phoenix Open will still ride shotgun with the Super Bowl. And the two major men’s tours are co-sanctioning an event for the first time.

There’s still some familiarity with the schedule. The Players will be in March, the Masters is a fixture in early April, the PGA Championship returns to May for the third time in the last four years, the U.S. Open has its traditional spot in June and all eyes will be on the Old Course for the Open Championship in July.

But there’s plenty of other changes to note, so check them out here.

Who won the PGA Tour’s new $40 million Player Impact Program? Phil Mickelson says he did.

A PGA Tour spokesman told Golfweek the year-long program runs through December 31.

The PGA Tour has not revealed the winners of the new Player Impact Program.

That didn’t stop Phil Mickelson, who became the oldest major champion by winning the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island in May, from tweeting Wednesday he won the PIP and the $8 million first prize.

However, a PGA Tour spokesman told Golfweek the year-long program runs through December 31 and a number of metrics have lag time in their reporting. As well, the results have to be verified by an independent auditor.

The PGA Tour, despite earlier saying it would not reveal the winners of the program, said the results will be released to its membership in mid-February.

The $40 million program, which will increase to $50 million in 2022, rewards 10 players. The PGA Tour will release only the top 10 players on the list through its communications with the membership.

“I’d like to thank all the crazies (and real supporters too) for … Helping me win the PiP!!,” Mickelson wrote on Twitter. In addition to his stunning victory in the PGA – his lone top 10 on the PGA Tour in 2021 – Mickelson won twice on the PGA Tour Champions, including the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

The member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and six-time major champion added that to receive the second half of his money, he had to add a PGA Tour event he hasn’t played in a while to his schedule. That’s why, he wrote, he’s playing in next week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii for the first time since 2001.

Five categories were used to determine the player’s Impact score: Google search frequency, social media reach, Nielsen score (TV time), Meltwater mentions (global media attention), and Q-score (player appeal).

The program was created in 2021 to reward its most popular players.

“For us, it’s all about getting our players to engage in our game, help grow our Tour, and help grow their own respective brands,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said at The Tour Championship.

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How we would award the PGA Tour’s $40 million in Player Impact Program money

The Tour won’t release the winners, so we gave it a shot.

Commissioner Jay Monahan made it clear during his State of the PGA Tour press conference back in August that the winners of the $40 million Player Impact Program would not be publicized.

“To us, it’s a program that we created, was created by our players, with our players, for our players, and that’s, that’s what we decided that we were going to do when we created it,” he said at the time.

For the sake of some silly-season fun, your friends at Golfweek thought we’d share how we would dole out the cash. If you’re unfamiliar with the format, at the end of the year the Tour will reward 10 players who “positively move the needle,” with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.

More on how the actual scores will be counted can be found here.

ICYMI: Among the PGA Tour purse increases? Another $10 million for the Player Impact Program.

A reminder: Here are the metrics that go into a player’s score.

It’s an old trick in the political world. When an opponent criticizes an incumbent, the incumbent simply takes an action to negate the criticism.

If your opponent says there aren’t enough stop signs in a town, for instance, you as the mayor simply put up more stop signs. Then your opponent has nothing to base his attacks on anymore. It’s a strategy to cut the legs out from under your opponent.

That certainly appears to be the strategy of the PGA Tour these days when it comes to the threat of the proposed Saudi-backed golf tour led by Hall of Famer Greg Norman. The Saudi tour is offering more money, and more guaranteed money, to top players. The PGA Tour is now doing the same through a series of initiatives, though there is still nothing of a guarantee to what the PGA Tour is pushing.

We know that there are offers of up to $30 million guaranteed for top players to sign with the tour pushed by Norman and the Saudi money. What the PGA Tour is doing is increasing purses and bonus money to reward its top players. We already knew, for example, that The Players Championship run by the PGA Tour has increased its purse to $20 million next year from $15 million, with $3.6 million for the first prize.

Then the Tour issued a memo to players last week outlining major increases in other Tour-controlled events. Among the biggest changes are an increase in the FedEx Cup bonus from $60 to $75 million. Patrick Cantlay won $15 million for winning the FedEx Cup in the 2020-21 season, so that will go up for the current season.

And here’s a bonus that was glossed over when the announcement came out — the new and mysterious Player Impact Program, will rise from $40 million to $50 million.

Remember, fans don’t actually know who wins this money for players who have a big social and media impact on the Tour.

Last August, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that the Player Impact Program, which was approved this year, would run through the end of the year rather than following the Tour’s schedule. Despite the program being designed to compensate players who are judged to drive fan and sponsor engagement, Monahan said, “we don’t have any intention on publicizing it.”

As Golfweek originally reported, the 10 beneficiaries will be determined based on their “Impact Score,” a number generated from six separate metrics that are designed to quantify that individual’s added value. According to a document the PGA Tour distributed to players, the metrics on which players will be ranked against their peers include:

(1) Their position on the season-ending FedEx Cup points list.
*Update: While FedEx Cup rank was included among criterion in the document players received, the tour tells Golfweek that it will not be used as a metric to determine bonus payments.

(2) Their popularity in Google Search.

(3) Their Nielsen Brand Exposure rating, which places a value on the exposure a player delivers to sponsors though the minutes they are featured on broadcasts.

(4) Their Q Rating, which measures the familiarity and appeal of a player’s brand.

(5) Their MVP Index rating, which calibrates the value of the engagement a player drives across social and digital channels.

(6) Their Meltwater Mentions, or the frequency with which a player generates coverage across a range of media platforms.

The Tour will employ an algorithm to turn the values from each metric into Impact Scores for every player and a ranking of those Scores then determines the bonus amount due.

It’s not just bonuses going up, but purses in some big events, too. World Golf Championships, which guarantee money to a player because there are no cuts, will increase their purses to $12 million. The Tour has three events designated as invitationals, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Memorial hosted by Jack Nicklaus and the Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods. Each of those events will have $12 million purses, up from $10.5

All of this is great news for the players, especially the top players who annually seem to win the most money on Tour with their stellar performances. Even if you are the last golfer to qualify for the WGC event, your share of that increased purse just went up.

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But it all does seem a little bit transparent. Maybe the powers at the PGA Tour see the Saudi tour as a legitimate threat, maybe they don’t. But their action on increasing bonus money and big purses does seem to be a direct response to the threat. The PGA Tour, like most sports organizations, trades on the appeal of its biggest stars.

If those players are tempted by the Saudi tour because of more money, the PGA Tour’s answer is to give the stars more money. No, it’s not a guaranteed contract at the start of the season before anyone hits a ball in competition, but it is a guarantee that golfers who perform at the level they have before will now earn more money.

Will the strategy work? We see it all the time in sports, especially with coaches. If a coach is rumored to be heading to a different team or a different school, the odds are that coach will get an offer of a contract extension with an increase in annual pay. Look at the bonus and purse increases as a kind of increased salary for the stars of the PGA Tour.

None of this means a few stars won’t still take their chances with the Saudi tour. There are a few other issues that some players have with the PGA Tour, after all. But it does mean the PGA Tour is willing to acknowledge that paying its biggest stars is a priority.

The big money is a political gamble for the PGA Tour, trying to cut the legs out from under the Saudi tour. It might be more than enough for the PGA Tour to remain the incumbent in the game.

Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.

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Jim Herman takes not-so-subtle shot at Patrick Reed ahead of Saturday’s Cincinnati vs. Notre Dame college football game

“Bearcats by a million.”

Jim Herman has made it no secret that he’s gunning for a share of the PGA Tour’s lucrative $40 million Player Impact Program bonus to be handed out at the end of the year.

The three-time winner on Tour also knows the key to great social media interaction, especially in the golf world: take a shot a Patrick Reed.

The Cincinnati, Ohio native played golf for the Bearcats before turning professional in 2000 and tweeted a picture of Reed and his wife, Justine, decked out in Notre Game gear ahead of No.7 Cincinnati’s marquee matchup Saturday afternoon on the road at No. 9 Notre Dame. The captain?

“Bearcats by a million.”

Remember, the PGA Tour doesn’t plan on announcing the program winners, but we all know who the real champion is.

Herman’s jab wasn’t the only college football-golf crossover on Saturday, either. Earlier in the morning members of the victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team helped announce ESPN College GameDay’s guest picker for Arkansas vs. Georgia, former Bulldog Harris English, who went 1-2-0 at Whistling Straits last week.

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Patrick Cantlay not a fan of the PIP, says it’s leading to some unruly fan behavior

“If you have 98 percent of the 10,000 people in the gallery pulling for you, the other 200 can cause problems,” Cantlay said.

ATLANTA – Patrick Cantlay has some sympathy for Bryson DeChambeau.

He has nothing but apathy for the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, which was created this year by the PGA Tour and rewards the top 10 players measured by several metrics of popularity and slices a $40 million pie between those top needle-movers.

Cantlay played 24 holes alongside DeChambeau on Sunday in the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland – 18 in regulation and then six more in an instant playoff classic he would win with a 17-foot birdie. Throughout the day, DeChambeau was subjected to unruly fan behavior featuring regular taunts of “Brooksie,” a byproduct of the tiff DeChambeau has had with Brooks Koepka for more than two years.

“Naturally, of course, there is some sympathy because you don’t want to see anybody have a bunch of people be against you or even be heckled,” Cantlay said Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s start of the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale. As a result of his win in the BMW Championship, Cantlay took over the lead and has a two-shot advantage heading into the first round.

“Unfortunately, it might be a symptom of a larger problem, which is social media driven and which is potentially Player Impact Program derived,” Cantlay added. “I think when you have people that go for attention-seeking maneuvers, you leave yourself potentially open to having the wrong type of attention, and I think maybe that’s where we’re at and it may be a symptom of going for too much attention.”

Read Patrick Cantlay’s and Rory McIlroy’s full comments

DeChambeau is certainly a regular in social media circles, posting plenty of videos of his workouts, speed drills and his Herculean work with the driver. He’s a popular figure in the social media biosphere but is also a frequent target for criticism for his posts on Facebook, Instagram, and such.

“It can be awesome, too, because if you succeed and you act perfect all the time and you do the perfect things all the time, and then you also go for the right attention-seeking moves, you get like double bonus points because everyone loves you and you’re on the perfect side of it,” Cantlay said. “I think it’s just a very live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword type of deal. And when you leave it to a jury, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

“So it’s hard to get all 12 people on a jury on your side.

“Or even if you have 98 percent of the 10,000 people in the gallery pulling for you,” Cantlay said. “The other 200 can cause problems.”

“If those people have had enough to drink or feel emboldened enough to say something because they want to impress the girl they’re standing next to, then, yeah, like, you’re in trouble,” Cantlay said. “People are going to say bad things.

“If you only have 2 percent of the people that are very against you because you’re polarizing and because you’re attention-seeking, then you’re kind of dead because those people are going to be loud, and they’re going to want to say something to get under your skin.

“Maybe people have watched too much Happy Gilmore and they don’t feel enough sympathy for Shooter McGavin. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.”

Cantlay said he doesn’t think he’s doing well in the PIP. He’s more interested in being true to himself and being the best golfer he can be.

“I may not be the cookie cutter golfer,” he said. “I may not look or have the same expressions as everybody else, but I think if I’m true to myself and I just act naturally for me, it will come across that I’m being natural, and if I play well and am myself, I think it will all work out.

“I don’t get too caught up in under-appreciated or unsung or things like that. I don’t think it helps. And so I think it does help to practice and focus as much as I can to produce the best golf I possibly can.”

Now, if he were to earn a share of the PIP millions, he knows what he’d do.

“I would be compelled to give all that money back to the fans that made it possible, because there’s no way a person like me should be able to get into the top 10 of the PIP if not for people out there deciding that they want me to be in the top 10 and to try to get some of that PIP money for themselves,” Cantlay said. “Because if I win PIP money, I am going to give it back to the people that made it possible in some way, shape or form. I won’t take any of the PIP money. I think it’s kind of ridiculous and I think it’s, when I said there’s a symptom of a larger problem, I think that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

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PGA Tour says $40 million Player Impact Program ‘winners’ won’t be revealed. Twitter-verse expresses its dismay.

“We don’t have any intention on publicizing it,” said commissioner Jay Monahan.

We may never know if Jim Herman wins the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, at least that’s the way the PGA Tour would like it.

During his State of the PGA Tour press conference in Atlanta ahead of the Tour Championship on Tuesday, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that the Player Impact Program, which was approved this year and features a $40 million bonus pool for the most popular players, won’t conclude at the end of the FedEx Cup season on Sunday but rather run through the end of the year. Despite the program being designed to compensate players who are judged to drive fan and sponsor engagement, Monahan said, “we don’t have any intention on publicizing it.”

That seems counterintuitive but when asked for an explanation, Monahan said, “To us, it’s a program that we created, was created by our players, with our players, for our players, and that’s, that’s what we decided that we were going to do when we created it.”

The FedEx Cup, one could argue, also fits that description but the up-to-the-minute standings are recited by TV announcers almost as soon as each week’s winner holes the final putt.

Monahan noted that there are five different criteria, each weighted equally in calculating how the bonus money will be distributed among the top 10 players, with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.

No player has shamelessly campaigned for a share of the $40 million quite like Herman, a 43-year-old journeyman pro who has built a Twitter following ever since he first tweeted about the PIP news a day after Golfweek broke the story on April 20: “My ship has come in!”

Twitter did not react well to the news that the megastars finishing in the money won’t be revealed.

Trevor Immelman

Colt Knost

Max Homa