Buried in the very last bullet of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s memo to members on changes coming to the PGA Tour schedule is this news: The Resource Allocation Plan for 2024 has also been adjusted.
You know, the RAP?
In short, the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program will be reduced to $50 million paid to the top 10 players. That’s a reduction from $100 million to the top 20, and a return to the original amount from the PIP’s inaugural year. But that $50 million isn’t disappearing. Instead, the remaining funds will be distributed via the FedEx Cup Bonus Program and Comcast Business Tour top 10, which rewards the top finishers on the regular season points list.
The Tour’s PIP is a way of rewarding players who generate the most positive interest in the Tour. In other words, this is how the Tour through “objective measurement criteria” pay Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler and those who deserve the bulk of the credit for the eyeballs on the sport for their loyalty.
Woods has won each of the last two years, banking a combined $25 million despite hardly playing. While Woods likely will continue to be rewarded for what he’s done for the game, it turns out that more of the players would prefer to play for the money rather than have it be based on reputation. As Patrick Cantlay famously said at the 2021 Tour Championship, “I won’t take any of the PIP money. I think it’s kind of ridiculous.”
The Tour’s story on the changes noted that “further details will be shared with the membership in the coming weeks.”
