The PIP era of the PGA Tour is over. Here’s what we learned

Goodbye, good riddance and RIP PIP.

A kind.

of Player Impact Programintroduced in 2021 as a means of rewarding the 10 most influential players on the PGA Tour in a given year, it is being discontinued. It caused a stir early on, ironically making quite a few headlines of its own in its first year. (Can winning PIP help you … help you win PIP?) But by the end of his run, he was just another annual prize that more popular players could add to their haul, adding millions to their already tens of millions.

In fairness to its organizers, PIP was never meant to be public. Each year’s results were not supposed to be shared, tweeted or written. But like anything sent to players in an official memo or email, it eventually leaked. So PIP came out and became something a little bigger than it ever needed to be.

Why? Because of us. slip always said more about us – our viewing habits and what (or who) we consume – than the players, who were simply… themselves. Just take a look at what we’ve learned over the years.

1. PIP was never a social media contest

When news of PIP was first reported – in what amounted to a bombshell by Eamon Lynch in Golfweek — most of the backlash focused on the inclusion of social media metrics. The idea that professional gamers could win an annual monetary award for the engagement and size of their social following rubbed many people the wrong way.

But this is for them.

While PIP was in many ways an assessment of popularity it was rarely about sending more tweets and engaging with platforms. PIP compiled a ranking from five different categories, including Google search ranking and the amount of seconds a player flashed across TV screens. Only one of these categories was devoted to social media engagement, and only during the first two years of the PIP. The top-ranked player in that category in 2021 was Bubba Watson, which helped him earn the 10th and final payout ($3 million). But social media metrics were soon replaced by surveys focused on player fan awareness.

2. PIP was a chess piece from the beginning

The timing of PIP’s launch is more visible now than it seemed then. He arrived in early 2021, just as plans for a “Saudi golf league” were gaining momentum. On paper, it was a promise to golf’s biggest names: hang in there, do your thing, and you’ll get paid for it… to the extent of millions.

Nice move, right? But it didn’t seem to work. After all, the Saudi-backed league that launched promised riches that outweighed anything PIP could offer. Did the players who left for LIV use their potential PIP earnings in contract negotiations with LIV? They would have been smart to do so. You should ask Bryson DeChambeau, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka. All five jumped to LIV immediately after finishing in the initial PIP top 10.

3. Chess piece value evolved over time

The fact that the PGA Tour went so far as to look at its membership of over 200 people and tell them which members were most important to its popularity didn’t sit well with everyone at the time. But surprisingly 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 anti-competitive practices. Three of those golfers took the Tour to a hearing where both sides were forced to submit about the state of their competition. LIV Golf argued that the Tour was unlawfully making their lives difficult. The Tour released its PIP rankings and showed, Hey, you’ve hijacked half of our most influential players. You are obviously doing well. As much as it must have hurt the tour to admit it on the record in a courtroom – with the entire industry watching – it was arguments like this that told Judge Beth Freeman that LIV Golf and its players were not holding back as much as they were claiming.

The PIP chess piece continued to evolve in the following months, hoping to keep more players from jumping ship. In 2023, the program doubled in size — up to $100 million, paid to 20 players — to help ensure that the no. 14, 17 and 20 would also appreciate some funds for their influence (and loyalty). Did any of them prevent him from jumping ship? You have to ask them.

4. Rory McIlroy proved to be the leading king

Most of the reporting on PIP rankings over the years has been over-simplified, simply regurgitating the list. But the interesting stuff was always in the details, buried in memos sent out by PGA Tour executives year after year. Beyond the standings, the tournament always showed actual numbers (to ten thousandths of a part) of popularity, Google searches, golf fan awareness, TV time, etc. And Rory McIlroy simply Dominates golf coverage.

McIlroy has twice been ranked first in what’s called “Meltwater Mentions,” a measure of the number of unique articles — essentially news coverage — that mention a player’s name. Favorites for the Masters? Heartbreak in a fight? Does winning tournaments matter? Starting a simulator golf league? Think about the future of the game? Rory McIlroy checks so, so, so many golf news coverage boxes. He also talks about important topics, leading the conversation and making more coverage. He comments on his game after almost every round, plays in the Ryder Cup and ultimately doesn’t shy away from any element of his life. (Of course it doesn’t hurt that he is extremely media literate and has good relationships with many members of the media.)

To be written about more that Tiger Woods is impressive, and McIlroy achieved it twice. The two times McIlroy didn’t finish first, he finished second … behind Woods.

5. No golfer will be more famous than Tiger Woods

Did we need PIP to tell us that? That the greatest golfer who ever lived achieved and maintained a level of fame that no other golfer will ever touch? No. But it was exactly what PIP repeated year after year, especially as Woods’ appearances on the course dwindled.

Woods has been the most Googled golfer in the world every year of PIP’s existence. He has also had the highest fan awareness rank every year. Aren’t you shocked? That’s okay. But it shows why people care about the PNC Championship and the World Challenge of Heroes and why they care more regarding the Genesis invitation in February. Because this is the new order of events that ABoUT outside of the major championships. They are the events when the most popular golfer in the world, by a wide margin, tries to play. And the TV ratings back it up.

6. Jordan Spieth is still Jordan Spieth

Despite his declining game, wrist pain and the prospect of his career dragging, Jordan Spieth remains a huge asset to the PGA Tour. Spieth landed at No. 5 in the 2024 PIP rankings, one spot behind Xander Schauffele and one ahead of Collin Morikawa. One of those players had the biggest, most remarkable year of his life, another is a 2-time major winner who continues to play some of the best golf of his life, and the last has fallen from Top 50 in the world ranking. The latter is Spieth.

His popularity – built largely on the rapid ascent to start 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 the other players in the top 10, but still on TV a lot because he is a fascinating golfer to watch. He may have had the opposite season to Scottie Scheffler, but fan awareness polls ranked Spieth as more popular than Scheffler. Shrug it off, or realize it likely means more people showing up to local tour events in Dallas hoping to watch Spieth catch some magic.

With that in mind, allow me a brief thought about tonight’s launch TGL, the golf simulator league with technology. While the league has received commitments from many of the world’s best players, it notably did not receive it from Spieth, nor did Scheffler, two players who finished in the top 5 of PIP 2024. Both players noted how they would prefer not to added extra travel — they both live in Dallas — to an already busy spring schedule while caring for young families. It makes a lot of sense. But the league won’t feature the star power of two of the game’s biggest figures. This matters.

7. PIP is not going away completely

Although its importance has faded over the years, something similar in PIP will remain in place for the PGA Tour. Equity grants totaling $100 million will be issued to Tour members annually as part of the Player Equity Program, created last spring following the multibillion-dollar incorporation of PGA Tour Enterprises. Twenty-one players will receive those grants for their performance in the previous year, the previous three years, as well as their ranking in metrics used during the PIP era. In other words, it won’t be all the off-course stuff that gives future millions to the strongest performers on the PGA Tour, as it has sometimes felt with PIP. But it will still be valuable for golfers to generate positive headlines, get Googled a lot, and get golfers (and non-golfers) aware. In other words, Tiger Woods will likely continue to reap capital grants for years to come, regardless of how many tournaments he plays.

One issue—at least from my perspective—is that we’re unlikely to hear about these results of popularity, awareness, and influence moving forward. The tour has explicitly told players not to publicly discuss the amount of equity they receive from PGA Tour Enterprises, so it would be surprising to see a ranking of this kind published (or leaked!) in late 2025. No has more PIP knowledge. But we had a good run.