Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods appear to have landed another bumper payday, just for being Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.
Rory McIlroy is set for a £11.9million windfall after he finished top of the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program for 2023. But the Northern Irishman could potentially double that amount next year after the tour announced plans to half its annual payout to just 10 players instead of 20.
The program is “designed to reward members who – through objective measurement criteria – are shown to generate the most positive interest in the PGA Tour,” according to Jason Gore, Executive Vice President of the PGA.
The largest players on the PGA Tour are essentially compensated with the payout. It should come as no surprise that McIlory leads the list once again because he has been the tour’s most outspoken supporter despite a strong challenge from LIV Golf.
The greatest player of all time, Tiger Woods, will receive a cool $15,000,000 for taking first place. Woods finished runner-up despite missing the majority of the season due to injury. Although Woods’ ankle surgery kept him from winning any prizes, his $12,000,000 payout from the Player Impact Program should be enough to make up for it.
Americans Jordan Speith, Scottie Sheffler, and Rickie Fowler are ranked third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, after Masters champion Jon Rahm. Rising European talent Viktor Hovland comes in at number seven, followed by Justin Thomas, who manages to make the list despite having an awful season in which he missed a lot of cuts and fell down the world rankings.
Despite winning the Open Championship at Hoylake in July, US player Brian Harman is ranked 20th and final, earning $2,000,000 apiece for the lowest five players.
However, Gore’s memo confirming the final rankings also mentioned that starting the following year, the tour will reward only the top 10 players and cut the pot in half to $50,000,000. Big names like Collin Morikawa, Xander Shauffele, Justin Rose, and Patrick Cantlay would not have received any money at all if that decision had been made this year.
The distribution of the pot among the top 10 “impactful” players for the upcoming season is still unknown, but since McIlroy is sure to win the championship again, he may receive an even larger payout simply for being himself.
The Policy Board of the PGA Tour decided in March to cut the number of players eligible for the bonus payment in half. McIlory would have probably participated in the decision-making process because, until this month, he was a member of the board.
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