Maybe you just sold a house during this red-hot real estate market. Maybe you have a fat tax return headed your way. Or maybe you just won the lottery. And maybe, with the first major of the year right around the corner, you have a little Masters fever.
It’s probably going to take some sort of major cash infusion if you intend to be the winner in the auction for the irons and wedges Tiger Woods used during his Tiger Slam.
Woods won the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship in 2000 to become just the second golfer since Ben Hogan to win three majors in one year. Woods then made the turn in 2001 and won the Masters, becoming the first to hold all four professional major golf championships at the same time.
The set of Tiger Slam irons and wedges features nine Titleist 681-T irons, 2-iron through pitching wedge, as well as and two Vokey wedges. One is a 58-degree wedge, the other a 60. Both wedges have “TIGER” stamped on them. The club that gets the most attention is the 8-iron, because of its small wear pattern in the middle of the face.
To verify their authenticity, the irons come with an affidavit and polygraph results in 2010 from former Titleist vice president Steve Mata as well as a 2020 affidavit from former Titleist vice president Rick Nelson. The set also includes a 2000 Golfweek article by Jim Achenbach detailing the specs of the irons Woods used to win the 2000 PGA Championship, which match the specs of the irons being sold.
Ryan Carey, the owner of Golden Age auctions, said he has talked to “dozens of people intimately familiar with these clubs” about their authenticity. “We can say with 100 percent confidence that these clubs were used by Tiger Woods during his legendary 2000-01 seasons,” he told PGATour.com.
Golden Ages Auction is running the sale and if that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s the same auction house that sold one of Woods’ backup Scotty Camerons last year for nearly $400,000. Golden Ages also sold Horton Smith’s green jacket from his 1934 Masters in 2013 for $682,000. Earlier this week, it sold a badge from that 1934 Masters Tournament for $600,000.
That badge was signed by 17 people, including Smith, Augusta National Golf Club co-founder Bobby Jones and sportswriter Grantland Rice.
Bidding for the Tiger irons and wedges will close April 9, which happens to be the final round of the 2022 Masters.
The clubs were purchased in 2010 by Todd Brock, who made a winning bid of $57,242. He kept them in a frame in his office.
“I got to enjoy them for 11-12 years,” Brock told PGATour.com. “I live a boring life. I don’t entertain a whole lot, so they weren’t getting the eyes on them that they deserve.”