The newly crowned king of the Player Impact Program already has a good start on the 2022 race. Tiger Woods took to Twitter to troll Phil Mickelson, whom Woods beat to win the PGA Tour’s lucrative year-long bonus.
Back in December, Mickelson claimed he won the PIP, although the PGA Tour said results weren’t finalized yet. But after they were officially announced on Wednesday, with Woods on top, Woods didn’t miss his chance to dunk on Mickelson. The 15-time major champ tweeted a screenshot of Mickelson erroneously claiming he won and added text that said simply: “whoops.”
In about 20 minutes, the tweet was retweeted nearly 4,000 times and liked nearly 20,000 times.
The Tour created the PIP last year to incentivize players who helped bring the most eyeballs to the sport, while also doubling as a way to reward its top stars who might have been lured away by big-money rival golf leagues. The Tour — which uses several different digital metrics to track the ranking (more on that here) — had previously said it wouldn’t announce the winners, but on Wednesday it tweeted the final standings. (Golf Digest’s Dan Rapaport tweeted the results 25 minutes earlier.)
A total of $40 million was dished out, with Woods winning $8 million. Mickelson took home $6 million for second. Bubba Watson, who was 10th, earned $3 million.
Woods claiming the PIP’s top prize is yet another example of his influence in the sport. Due to his car accident in February, he didn’t make an official PGA Tour start in 2021; his only appearance on the course was a well-publicized team event with his son, Charlie, at the PNC Championship in December. The hype around that event and Woods’ return might also have been enough to push him ahead of Mickelson in the PIP.
Woods’ jab at Mickelson is also notable for a couple of reasons. For one, Mickelson has gone quiet on social media since his controversial comments two weeks ago; and Woods, despite a massive following on Twitter (6.5 million followers), isn’t known to get too playful in his tweets.
But this time he couldn’t hold back.
Check it out below:
🤷♂️ whoops 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/SkMTGerVOB
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) March 2, 2022
The results are in for the inaugural Player Impact Program.
1. Tiger Woods
2. Phil Mickelson
3. Rory McIlroy
4. Jordan Spieth
5. Bryson DeChambeau
6. Justin Thomas
7. Dustin Johnson
8. Brooks Koepka
9. Jon Rahm
10. Bubba Watson— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 2, 2022
Article originally appeared on: Golf.com
The PIP program should be for achievements on the golf course not for being popular and not even playing some players that should have been on the list were left out in the cold. Get a new format
Really? I thought the winner had to play in five events to win, or something of that nature. The PGA continually tries to change rules to meet a woke standard that’s not necessary. The players are so disingenuous that they cave to the smallest amount of pressure to distance themselves from controversy, much like the NBA refusing to say China is reprehensible because it will hurt their bottom line. Justin Thomas is “outraged” by Phil’s comments and Phil loses sponsorships.. Yet JT caves to the PC culture, apologizes for muttering something to himself that we have “ALL” done, and he doesn’t lose one sponsor.. What a bunch of lackeys to the woke!!
Could not agree more. This FAKE OUTRAGE by the PGA and it players about Phil is in a word ridiculous, the fact that every product used by and promoted by them is produced in that bastion of human rights China apparently is lost on them and the players. Just sayin!
Love both players, but Bruce Hill and Eric are “right on the money”, I didn’t know the “leadership” of the PGA wanted to change professional golf into a beauty contest…Paige Spiranac has that won hands down, or do we have to separate the sexes?
The woke together with big business is killing free speech so they can all get away with murder with no repercussions. Time to call them out and make America free again!