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Rory McIlroy

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Rory McIlroy shocked the golf world on Wednesday by taking a U-turn on his stance on LIV Golf. The Northern Irishman, in a series of statements, claimed that the breakaway tour led by Greg Norman has “exposed the flaws in the system” of golf. While McIlroy’s comments faced backlash from fans of the PGA Tour, Phil Mickelson, one of his biggest critics, came out to back the Irishman.

The LIV Golf star noted he was fully in favor of his rival’s change of opinion. He lauded McIlroy’s comments and said that they’ve paved the way for the two sides to ‘let go of hostilities and work towards a positive future.’

Interestingly, the 53-year-old credited Jon Rahm by stating that the Spaniard’s LIV signing has ‘turned into a bridge’ to bring the two fighting sides together. Furthermore, he even called on a rule change to allow the Masters champion and other LIV players on the Ryder Cup.

Reacting to Rory McIlroy’s comments on LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, Phil Mickelson wrote on X (formerly Twitter):

It is pertinent to note that Mickelson shared a post carrying McIlroy’s comment while giving his reaction.

The PGA needed to do something creative in order to stop their best golfers from leaving to the LIV competition. As a result of this, they created a $15 million bonus annual award in 2021 that is known as the ‘Player Impact Program‘. Since it’s creation, this program started sharing a total of $100 million amongst 20 golf stars who are considered to have the most significant impact over the course of the entire season. In 2023, the winner was Rory McIlroy, who bagged $15 million from the pot but the final results have not been revealed just yet. This would be the first time that Rory beats Tiger Woods in this specific award, he finished second on the list just behind the Northern Irishman. But finishing second meant Tiger still won a cool $12 million.

How much did the other 8 PGA golfers make this year?

Apart from Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, there were another 8 golfers who split the rest of the $100 million pot and here is how they finished. In third place, Jon Rahm finished with $9.1. Fourth place was for Jordan Spieth, who won $7.5 million. Scottie Scheffler ranked fifth with $6 million. The last five golfers from the Top 10 were Rickie Fowler, Viktor Hovland, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, and Max Homa. All of them finished the year with $5 million. The rest of the $100 million was distributed in another amongst another 10 golfers. But this is considered almost an insult for many of the other PGA members, who are between 150 and 200 right now.

Former PGA Tour winner Nate Lashley is not happy with the way the institution has divided this money, a total of $100 million on 20 players. Here is what he said: “How many golf fans actually know what the PIP on the PGA Tour is? Would love to hear from golf/PGA fans if they think this is $100m well spent? There’s 150-200 members of the PGA Tour and they just spent $100m on 20 players. Seems a little ridiculous. Time for new leadership on the PGA Tour. This is an absolute kick in the face to the rest of the PGA Tour players.