Six burning questions after Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler switch

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Mayakoba Golf Classic in his edition of the Power Rankings. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. SEASON SEGMENT

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He didn’t play much, but he still moved the needle. Tiger Woods was No. 1 in the 2022 PGA TOUR Player Impact Program (PIP) for the second straight year, the 82-time TOUR winner earning the top impact bonus of $15 million. Rory McIlroy, who won the FedExCup for an unprecedented third time, returned to world No. 1, and over the weekend captured the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai, finished second ($12 million). A memo with the results went out to players early Tuesday afternoon. Jordan Spieth ($9 million), Justin Thomas ($7.5 million), Jon Rahm ($6 million), Scottie Scheffler ($5.5 million), Xander Schauffele ($5 million), Matt Fitzpatrick ($5 million), Will Zalatoris ($5 million) and Tony Finau ($5 million) rounded out the top 10. The second-year PIP program paid out to the top 20 finishers, double what it did in its first year. However, three additional players who would have made the list under the slightly amended criteria that will go into effect in 2023 were also recognized, bringing the total to 23. The program is designed to reward members who – through objective measurement criteria – are shown to generate the most positive interest in the PGA TOUR. In addition to expanding from 10 to 20 players, payouts were expanded to $100 million. The 2022 PIP ranking was based on objective, third-party data measurement of: 1) Internet Searches: Number of times a player’s name is searched using Google 2) Earned Media: Number of unique news articles that include a player’s name 3) TV Sponsor Exposure: Duration (time) that a player’s sponsor logo(s) appeared on screen during Saturday and Sunday PGA TOUR telecasts 4) Awareness: A player’s general awareness score among broad U.S. population 5) Social Media: Social media score that considers a player’s reach, conversation and engagement metrics Nos. 11-20 on the list were made up of Collin Morikawa ($3 million), Shane Lowry ($3 million), Kevin Kisner ($3 million), Max Homa ($3 million), Billy Horschel ($3 million), Rickie Fowler ($2 million), Adam Scott ($2 million), Jason Day ($2 million), Patrick Cantlay ($2 million) and Viktor Hovland ($2 million). Because the criteria will be slightly modified for 2023, and three additional players – Hideki Matsuyama (11), Cameron Young (15), and Sam Burns (20) – would have qualified with those adjustments, they made this year’s list and will each earn $2 million. Woods, who will be 47 at the end of next month, continues to recover from injury. He has teed it up three times in 2022, making the cut at the Masters Tournament (47th), making the cut again but withdrawing with leg pain after three rounds at the PGA Championship, and missing the cut at The Open Championship. He was not in the field for the BMW Championship in August, but flew to Wilmington, Delaware, for a transformative player meeting prior to the start of the tournament. And his on-course activity is about to get much busier. Woods will play in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, Dec. 1-4, and will also be tournament host. He will make another appearance in “The Match,” the made-for-TV golf competition he has helped popularize, this time with partner McIlroy as they take on unbeaten Presidents Cup duo Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in a 12-hole tilt under the lights at Pelican Golf Club in Belleaire, Florida (TNT, 6 p.m.). Woods also could make his third straight appearance with son Charlie at the father-son PNC Championship at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando, Grande Lakes, Dec. 15-18. McIlroy, 33, is coming off a wildly successful season that returned him to the top of the game. After missing the Valero Texas Open cut in April, he fell to No. 27 in the FedExCup, but was runner-up at the Masters the following week. A long-delayed, successful title defense at the RBC Canadian Open, which hadn’t been played since 2019, further fueled his remarkable season. At the TOUR Championship, he began six behind Scottie Scheffler, and after a terrible start – triple-bogey, bogey – he rallied to beat Scheffler by one for an unprecedented third FedExCup title. McIlroy’s Sunday 66 allowed him to make up a six-shot deficit over the final 18 holes. He ended the year as golf’s No. 1, regaining the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking with his victory in THE CJ CUP in South Carolina, and then, over the weekend, adding the DP World Tour’s season-long points title to his FedExCup title.

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ATLANTA – If history is any indication, Sungjae Im is a lock for PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year when voting by his peers for the Arnold Palmer Award commences next week. He’s the lone rookie in this week’s field at the TOUR Championship, meaning he has more FedExCup points than his fellow rookies. In the FedExCup era, no one has won Rookie of the Year without having the most points – and every year a lone rookie has reached East Lake, he’s been named Rookie of the Year. But the issue with Im, the 21-year-old from Korea, is that he hasn’t won this season; his best finish is a tie for third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. He also has six other top-10s. Meanwhile, five of his fellow rookies have won – Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff, Cameron Champ, Adam Long and Martin Trainer. Not since 2011 have more rookie wins been posted in a single season. So the voters – in this case, TOUR members – will need to make a decision as they weigh their choice for Rookie of the Year: Season-long consistency but no win … or a win but less consistency/fewer starts? It’s the first time voters in the FedExCup era have had to weigh such polar opposites. “You have to look at each case differently. I don’t think there’s one overall criteria,� said Brandt Snedeker. “I haven’t looked at it too closely yet. I’ll look at it after this week and see how things shake out.� Snedeker won Rookie of the Year honors in 2007, the first year of the FedExCup. He won the Wyndham Championship that season and was the only rookie to reach East Lake. Pretty easy choice there. He’s one of five former Rookie of the Year winners playing at East Lake this week. The others are Charles Howell III (2001), Marc Leishman (2009), Rickie Fowler (2010) and Xander Schauffele (2017). Howell, Leishman and Fowler did not win during their rookie seasons; Schauffele won twice, including the TOUR Championship. No rookie won a tournament in Leishman’s season, but he had three top-10s that season, with his best finish a tie for second at the BMW Championship. That propelled him to East Lake, as he moved from 67th to 16th in the FedExCup standings. It’s no surprise he values trips to the TOUR Championship. “If you win, I guess it depends on which tournament it is. Or if you get to the TOUR Championship, that means a fair bit because it means you’ve had a great year,� Leishman said when asked which factors weigh the most. “If you end up at the TOUR Championship, that would probably mean more to me than a win. Getty here is pretty good. I think that makes a big difference.� Of course, Morikawa and Wolff could argue that they didn’t play enough events and it was simply an issue of opportunity. Both turned pro after their collegiate seasons, each making just seven starts prior to the FedExCup Playoffs. Thanks to their respective victories (Wolff at the 3M Open, Morikawa at the Barricuda Championship), it was enough to make the top 125. Wolff was eliminated after the first Playoffs event at Liberty National, and Morikawa was eliminated last week at Medinah. Related: TOUR Championship leaderboard | How it works: TOUR Championship | Koepka shares thoughts on Body Issue Meanwhile, Im has been the PGA TOUR’s workhorse this season. This week’s start is his 35th this season, the most of any player. Just three others played as many as 30 (Tom Hoge 32, Kelly Kraft 31, K.H. Lee 30). Of the two full-season rookies who won, Champ made 26 starts and Trainer made 25. When Im finishes his four rounds this week, he’ll have played 118 rounds this season – 18 more than any other player. The 29 other players at East Lake have averaged 78 rounds this season. That heavy workload helped him rack up FedExCup points, but his points-per-event pales in comparison to Morikawa and Wolff. For regular-season events, Morikawa ranked fourth on TOUR (111.4 average), Wolff ranked 12th (85.9) and Im ranked 61st (34.2). Add the first two Playoffs events, and the differences are reduced – Morikawa ranked 13th, Wolff ranked 23rd and Im ranked 51st after Medinah. But should Im get penalized in the voters’ minds for playing a full season – one good enough to reach East Lake – while Morikawa and Wolff were still in school? “He’s played a lot of golf – he’s definitely committed to a very packed schedule,� Schauffele said. “He’s played great. Every week – his last names only two letters, so I always see it on the leaderboard, and it’s always on top. “He didn’t win, or hasn’t won yet, and there’s always the talks with Morikawa and Wolff and them winning and he hasn’t. But if you look at the consistency – you heard it from so many players. If you make it to East Lake, you’ve had a good year. “Obviously, those two other boys didn’t have enough starts to make it here, and if they did, it would be ridiculous. In my mind, it would be hard to vote for anyone else just because he’s here and they’re not.� In 2008, Chez Reavie was part of a rookie class that also included Dustin Johnson. The winner that year, though, was Andres Romero, who won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, had top-10s in two majors and advanced to East Lake. Reavie also won that year – the RBC Canadian Open – but did not qualify for the season’s biggest events. “He was in all the WGC events and majors because of his world ranking because he played in Europe,� Reavie said of Romero. “That was my argument there. How is he a rookie when he’s in all the big tournaments and I’m not? I had to play my way into everything. He beat me by 50 points or something. I wasn’t too happy.� Reavie, as you might have gathered, values the grind of a full PGA TOUR season. “You look at what Sungjae did this year, making it here,� said Reavie after his Friday 6-under 64 that included his 21st career ace (five of those on TOUR). “It’s unbelievable. I have a hard time not giving the Rookie of the Year to somebody who makes it to the TOUR Championship. “I understand Matt Wolff’s a great player, so is Collin. They both won and played great. So it’s a tough one. Just have to see how it turns out. You’ve got a great case either way.� One sign of Im’s consistency is that his seven top-10s came in five different months – October, February, March (3), June and August. That’s the kind of start-to-finish run that impresses another voter, Jason Kokrak. “Those other guys (Morikawa, Wolff), played half a season,� Kokrak said. “They did win but I think it’s hard for those guys to win Rookie of the Year when they only have seven starts. They played incredible golf, which is great. But what Sungjae has done this year, I think, is more respectable than coming out and getting hot for three weeks.� Added Snedeker: “I know Sungjae’s the only rookie who made it here, so that’s kind of a leg up in my opinion.� So has Im – who is well off the pace through two rounds this week – done enough without a win? He hopes so. “I understand it’s voted by the players,� said Im, who won Rookie of the Year honors on the Korn Ferry Tour and could join Stewart Cink as the only players to win ROY honors on both tours in successive years. “I think I have a great chance, being the only rookie to advance to the TOUR Championship.� History is on his doorstep. Not only would he be the first Korean-born player to become Rookie of the Year, he’d also be the first player from Asia. The award was introduced in 1990. “If I received the honor,� Im said, “it would be incredibly significant for me and something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.�

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