Rickie Fowler about to earn serious dollar in PGA Tour's PIP race!
Expect Rickie Fowler to surge up the PGA Tour's PIP table this season!
Rickie Fowler is expected to pocket a vastly improved sum of money when the PGA Tour's Player Impact Program (PIP) is revealed at the end of this year following a graphic that was revealed by analytics company Zoomph.
The Player Impact Program, which is in its third year on the PGA Tour this season, is a bonus pool of cash divided out to players based on a variety of different measurements from Google searches to Q Rating.
It's essentially a bonus pool that rewards players for their positive impact on the sport.
Fowler had an average 2021-22 PGA Tour season by his own high standards, yet still finished 16th in the PIP race last year.
He earned a $2m bonus in November 2022.
To put that figure into perspective, it was nearly double his on-course earnings on the PGA Tour last season.
Tiger Woods won the PIP race for a second consecutive year in 2022.
The 15-time major champion played only a handful of events last season yet still walked away with the $15m top prize.
You can expect Woods to win the PIP race again this year, despite only playing one full event with a T45 at the Genesis Invitational, a tournament he hosts at famed Riviera.
Woods also competed in The Masters but he was forced out due to injury ahead of the final round.
He then had ankle surgery and has been sat on the sidelines for the rest of the season.
Rory McIlroy finished second and earned $12m, with Jordan Spieth earning $9m for coming third.
Justin Thomas made $7.5m for finishing fourth, while Jon Rahm ($6m) rounded out the top five.
World No.1 Scottie Scheffler made $5.5m for coming sixth.
Fast forward 12 months and Fowler, who is back in the US Ryder Cup team after being handed one of Zach Johnson's six picks, has enjoyed a stellar season on the PGA Tour highlighted with a comeback victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.
That particular tournament, according to Zoomph, ranked fourth for social media engagement in all of the PGA Tour events this season.
You can put that solely down to a resurgent Fowler, who earned his first win there on the PGA Tour in nearly four and half years.
In total, Fowler chalked up eight top-10 finishes in the 2022-23 season.
Fowler can therefore expect a much big PIP bonus than the $2m he received last season.
The Masters, Genesis Invitational and The Players were the top three tournaments on the PGA Tour for social media engagement.
Woods played in both The Masters and Genesis Invitational, which would explain their heavy social media engagement, albeit The Masters is always the most engaged tournament every season.
Rahm won The Masters and also the Genesis Invitational, while Scheffler won The Players Championship.
Check out the Top 10 PGA Tour events for social media engagement in the 2022-23 season:
All season long @PGATOUR social media shared major wins, viral moments and big stories from the golf course.
Ranked by total engagements, these were the Top 10 tournaments of the 2022/23 #PGATOUR schedule on social pic.twitter.com/khHCcOlzla— Zoomph (@Zoomph) August 30, 2023
Woods and McIlroy will dominate PIP proceedings again this year, but do not be surprised to see Fowler crack the top five.
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