Why McIlroy Will Miss Out On £3m Pay Out

Rory McIlroy will reportedly forfeit a whopping $3m for missing this week's RBC Heritage tournament at Hilton Head in South Carolina.

This year there are 12 designated events on the PGA Tour, not including the majors and The Players, and the players are only allowed to miss one. The Northern Irishman chose not to play in the season-opening Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua and so this was his second opt out.

A source told Sports Illustrated that this will result in McIlroy having to miss out on a quarter of his $12m pay out from the Player Impact Program (PIP) payout.

Supposedly the players were paid 75 per cent of the bonus in January, as a sweetener to keep them on board and on the Tour, with the rest to follow when they had met all the criteria which also includes adding three other events and agreeing to a perform something like a clinic or meet and greet.

It was mentioned that the Tour would take into account injuries or personal reasons but the strong likelihood is that McIlroy has decided to skip the RBC Heritage after missing the cut at Augusta.

The only way McIlroy may recoup some of his losses this year would be if Monahan, using the discretion granted to him as commissioner, decides that extenuating circumstances existed for McIlroy to miss this week’s Tour event.

When asked if the commissioner Jay Monahan might use the extenuating circumstances line, Xander Schaffele said: “I imagine he'd communicate to the membership. It's a lot of money. It's a big deal. A lot of people want to know what's going on.”

After all the headlines, magazine covers and incessant questions over whether this would be the year that he completed the career Grand Slam he shot rounds of 72-77 to slip away from the Masters without as much as a whimper.

For much of the past year McIlroy has been thrust front and centre to sing the praises of the PGA Tour and he's been more of a leading voice than Monahan and he and Tiger Woods were part of the decision-making process that led to more of these elite events, with their $20m prize purses.

Last year the bonus pool was $100m for the PIP where Woods led the way, pocketing $15m, while McIlroy finishing second and got $12m.

Next season the programme is being reduced to $50m and will not be tied to the designated events and there will be eight of those outside of the majors, Players and the three FedEx Cup playoff events.