The PGA Tour’s PIP Period is over. This is what we discovered

Goodbye, good riddance and RIP to the PIP.

Kind of. 

The Participant Affect Program, launched in 2021 as a way to reward the ten most impactful golfers on the PGA Tour in a given 12 months, is shutting down. It induced a stir early on, mockingly creating loads of headlines by itself in its first 12 months. (Might successful the PIP … assist win you the PIP?) However by the top of its run it was simply one other annual prize the preferred golfers might add to their haul, tacking on hundreds of thousands to their already tens of hundreds of thousands.

In equity to its organizers, the PIP was by no means imagined to be public. Every year’s outcomes had been by no means imagined to be shared, tweeted or written about. However, like something despatched to gamers in an official memo or e-mail, in the end leaked. So the PIP bought out, and it turned one thing a bit greater than it ever wanted to be.

Why? Due to us. The PIP at all times mentioned extra about us — our viewing habits and what (or who) we devour — than it did the gamers, who had been simply being … themselves. Simply check out what we discovered over time. 

1. The PIP was by no means a social-media contest

When information of the PIP was first reported — in what amounted to a bombshell from Eamon Lynch at Golfweek — a lot of the response turned fastened on its inclusion of social media metrics. The thought that professional golfers might win some annual financial prize for the engagement and measurement of their social following rubbed many individuals the unsuitable approach. 

However that’s on them. 

Whereas the PIP was in some ways an evaluation of recognition it was hardly ever about sending extra tweets and interesting with platforms. The PIP aggregated a rating from 5 totally different classes, inclusive of Google search rank and the quantity of seconds a participant flashed throughout tv screens. Solely a type of classes was dedicated to social media engagement, and solely in the course of the first two years of the PIP. The participant who ranked 1st in that class again in 2021 was Bubba Watson, which helped him land the tenth and remaining payout place ($3 million). However quickly social media measurements had been changed with surveys targeted on fan consciousness of gamers. 

2. The PIP was a chess piece from the beginning

The timing of the PIP’s launch is extra apparent now than it appeared again then. It arrived at first of 2021, simply as plans for a “Saudi golf league” had been gaining momentum. On paper, it was a promise to the largest names in golf: keep right here, do your factor, and also you’ll receives a commission for it… to the tune of hundreds of thousands. 

Good transfer, proper? However it didn’t appear to work. In the end the Saudi-backed league that launched promised riches that outweighed something the PIP might provide. Did gamers who left for LIV use potential PIP earnings in contract negotiations with LIV? They might have been sensible to take action. You’d should ask Bryson DeChambeau, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka. All 5 jumped to LIV quickly after ending within the PIP’s preliminary high 10.

3. The worth of the chess piece advanced over time

The truth that the PGA Tour went as far as to take a look at its 200+ particular person membership and inform them which members had been crucial to its recognition didn’t really feel nice for everybody on the time. However oddly it turned a authorized asset. 

Rewind to August 2022, when plenty of LIV golfers filed a lawsuit towards the PGA Tour for restraint of commerce and anticompetitive practices. Three of these golfers took the Tour into an injunction listening to the place each side had been compelled to current concerning the state of their competitors. LIV Golf argued that the Tour was illegally making life troublesome for them. The Tour pulled out its PIP rating and confirmed, Hey, you’ve snatched up HALF of our most impactful gamers. You’re clearly doing simply high quality. A lot because it will need to have harm the Tour to confess it on the file in a courtroom — whereas your complete business was watching — it was arguments like that that advised Decide Beth Freeman that LIV Golf and its gamers weren’t being restrained as a lot as they had been asserting. 

The PIP chess piece continued to evolve within the months that adopted, with the hope of preserving extra gamers from leaping ship. In 2023, this system doubled in measurement — as much as $100 million, paid out to twenty gamers — to assist be certain that nos. 14, 17 and 20 had been going to understand some funds for his or her impression (and loyalty), too. Did it maintain any of them from leaping ship? You’d should ask them.

4. Rory McIlroy proved to be king headline-maker

A lot of the reporting round PIP standings over time was over-simplified, simply regurgitating the checklist. However the fascinating stuff was in at all times within the particulars, buried within the memos despatched by PGA Tour executives 12 months after 12 months. Past the standings, the Tour at all times confirmed the precise figures (to 10 thousandths of a fraction) of recognition, Google searches, golf fan consciousness, TV time, and so forth. And Rory McIlroy merely dominates golf protection. 

McIlroy twice has ranked first in what is known as “Meltwater Mentions,” a measurement of the variety of distinctive articles — primarily information protection — that point out a participant’s title. Favorites for the Masters? Heartbreak in competition? Profitable tournaments that matter? Founding a simulator golf league? Opining on the way forward for the sport? Rory McIlroy checks so, so, so many packing containers of golf information protection. He additionally speaks out on essential subjects, pivoting the dialog and incurring extra protection. He feedback about his play after nearly each spherical, stars within the Ryder Cup and in the end doesn’t shrink back from any on-course aspect of his life. (It definitely doesn’t harm that he’s extraordinarily media literate and shares good relationships with quite a few media members.)

To be written about extra than Tiger Woods is spectacular, and McIlroy achieved it twice. The 2 instances McIlroy didn’t rank first, he completed second … behind Woods. 

5. No golfer will ever be extra well-known than Tiger Woods

Did we want the PIP to inform us this? That the best golfer who ever lived reached and sustained a stage of fame no different golfer will ever contact? No. However it was precisely the kind of factor the PIP reiterated 12 months after 12 months, notably as Woods’ on-course appearances have scaled again.

Woods has been the most-Googled golfer on the earth yearly of the PIP’s existence. He has had the very best fan-awareness rank yearly, too. Not shocked? That’s okay. However it goes to indicate why individuals care concerning the PNC Championship and the Hero World Problem and why they care extra concerning the Genesis Invitational in February. As a result of that’s the new order of occasions that matter exterior of the main championships. They’re the occasions when the preferred golfer on the earth, by a large margin, tends to play. And the TV scores again it up.  

6. Jordan Spieth remains to be Jordan Spieth

Regardless of his play sagging, his wrist hurting and the forecast of his profession crawling, Jordan Spieth stays an enormous asset to the PGA Tour. Spieth landed within the fifth place on the 2024 PIP rating, one spot behind Xander Schauffele and one forward of Collin Morikawa. A kind of gamers had the best, most seen 12 months of his life, one other is a 2-time main winner who continues taking part in among the finest golf of his life, and the final one plummeted out of the highest 50 on the earth rating. That final one is Spieth. 

His recognition — largely constructed on speedy ascendence to start his profession — has created an excellent excessive ground. He was Googled lower than Schauffele in 2024, however greater than Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. He was on TV lower than different gamers within the high 10, however nonetheless on TV lots as a result of he’s an enchanting golfer to observe. He could have had the literal reverse season to Scottie Scheffler, however fan consciousness surveys ranked Spieth as extra well-known than Scheffler. Shrug your shoulders at that, or acknowledge that it possible means extra individuals present as much as native Dallas Tour occasions hoping to observe Spieth catch some magic. 

With that in thoughts, permit me a short considered tonight’s launch of TGL, the tech-infused simulator golf league. Whereas the league has landed commitments from most of the finest gamers on the earth, it notably didn’t get that from Spieth, nor Scheffler, two gamers who completed within the high 5 of the 2024 PIP. Each gamers famous how they might reasonably not add further journey — they each dwell in Dallas — to an already busy spring schedule whereas caring for younger households. It makes loads of sense. However the league gained’t embody the star energy of two of the sport’s largest figures. That issues. 

7. The PIP isn’t completely going away

Although its relevance has light over time, one thing related to the PIP will stay in place for the PGA Tour. Fairness grants to the sum of $100 million can be issued to Tour members yearly as a part of the Participant Fairness Program, instituted final spring following the multi-billion incorporation of PGA Tour Enterprises. Twenty-ish gamers will obtain these grants for his or her efficiency within the previous 12 months, the earlier three years, in addition to their rank in metrics used in the course of the PIP Period. In different phrases, it gained’t be all off-the-course stuff that kicks future hundreds of thousands to the strongest performers on the PGA Tour, prefer it has felt at instances with the PIP. However it’ll nonetheless be precious for gamers to create optimistic headlines, be Googled lots and to make golf followers (and non-golf followers) conscious of themselves. In different phrases, Tiger Woods will possible nonetheless proceed reaping fairness grants in years to return, no matter what number of tournaments he performs.

One concern — not less than from my perspective — is we’re unlikely to listen to about these recognition, consciousness and impression scores transferring ahead. The Tour has explicitly advised gamers to not publicly talk about the quantity of fairness they obtain from PGA Tour Enterprises, so it could be shocking to see a rating of this kind launched (or leaked!) on the finish of 2025. No extra PIP insights. However we had run.