We may never know if Jim Herman wins the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, at least that’s the way the PGA Tour would like it.
During his State of the PGA Tour press conference in Atlanta ahead of the Tour Championship on Tuesday, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that the Player Impact Program, which was approved this year and features a $40 million bonus pool for the most popular players, won’t conclude at the end of the FedEx Cup season on Sunday but rather run through the end of the year. Despite the program being designed to compensate players who are judged to drive fan and sponsor engagement, Monahan said, “we don’t have any intention on publicizing it.”
That seems counterintuitive but when asked for an explanation, Monahan said, “To us, it’s a program that we created, was created by our players, with our players, for our players, and that’s, that’s what we decided that we were going to do when we created it.”
The FedEx Cup, one could argue, also fits that description but the up-to-the-minute standings are recited by TV announcers almost as soon as each week’s winner holes the final putt.
Monahan noted that there are five different criteria, each weighted equally in calculating how the bonus money will be distributed among the top 10 players, with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.
No player has shamelessly campaigned for a share of the $40 million quite like Herman, a 43-year-old journeyman pro who has built a Twitter following ever since he first tweeted about the PIP news a day after Golfweek broke the story on April 20: “My ship has come in!”
Twitter did not react well to the news that the megastars finishing in the money won’t be revealed.