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Jordan Spieth never really wanted to join the PGA Tour’s board of directors. As a new dad, and having seen how much time it adds to an already busy schedule, Spieth was content keeping his distance.
But after Rory McIlroy stepped down earlier this month, Spieth suddenly changed his mind. He threw his name out there and quickly became McIlroy’s replacement through the end of his term.
“It’s nice because it’s not a full term, which I had said I wasn’t interested in for the time being given two little ones now and trying to get my game where I want it,” Spieth said Tuesday from the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. “But I think that this is a pivotal moment in time for professional golf and the PGA Tour, and I felt like I could be of help.”
McIlroy, after years of leading the Tour against LIV Golf and its Saudi Arabian backers, opted to step down from the Tour’s board earlier this month. He said it wasn’t what he signed up for, and that he needed to take a step back. He’s already said he felt like fighting against LIV Golf had taken a toll on him, and that the surprise partnership agreement made him feel like a “sacrificial lamb,” so the resignation made sense.
So Spieth took McIlroy’s place alongside Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson on the board through the end of 2024.
“I totally understand it. He did two years, I only got to do … I’m only stepping in to do his last,” Spieth said of McIlroy’s decision. “And I feel like he’s taken some hits for trying to look out for the PGA Tour, and I think he feels proud of what he did, I would imagine, and feels like good things are going to happen, which I wholeheartedly believe.
“And for me, if it requires a little bit more time and that takes away from time other places temporarily, seems like a very important time to do so right now.”
Spieth has won 13 times on Tour in his career, most recently at the RBC Heritage in 2022. The 30-year-old had seven top-10 finishes last season, including a T4 run at the Masters.
Jordan Spieth hopes Tour’s PIP Bonus ends
Now that he’s in a leadership position, Spieth was immediately hit with questions at the Hero World Challenge this week. One of which had to do with the Tour’s Player Impact Program bonus, which awards 20 golfers who had the biggest impact on the Tour with a cash bonus out of a $100 million pool each year.
McIlroy finished first on the PIP list, which earned him an extra $15 million bonus. Tiger Woods, who had won the first two, finished second. Jon Rahm, Spieth and Scottie Scheffler finished out the top five.
While the idea makes sense on paper, at least one golfer wasn’t happy with how it ended up this season. Nate Lashley, who has one career win and is ranked No. 188 in the world, ripped the Tour on Instagram while sharing the results that he received in an email last week.
Though Spieth earned a $7.5 million bonus, and he understood why the program started in the first place, it sounds like he agrees with Lashley in a sense.
“I think that its goal was to help prevent players from accepting high dollar Saudi offers, LIV offers. I think that’s its goal,” Spieth said. “If you’re going to see numbers that are thrown out at players now, a couple specific players, it doesn’t really do that.
“I think that it was pretty unanimous, including those of us who have significantly benefited from it, to taper it down and find a way to spread those funds elsewhere to support, ideally, fields, purses, so that you still could benefit from them individually, but finding the right sweet spot.”
The PIP bonus pool will be cut in half in 2024 and will be awarded to just the top 10 players. The other $50 million will be allocated to other player programs.
Ideally, Spieth said, the PIP program will disappear in the near future regardless of what happens with the Tour’s partnership with LIV Golf.
“Hopefully it won’t need to exist, I think is the best way to put it, and I think that makes everybody happy, including those that have benefited from it, because there will be other ways to benefit from performance and just being a big brand for the PGA Tour,” Spieth said.