The clubs Tiger Woods used to complete the iconic ‘Tiger Slam’ have been sold for over £4.2 million two decades after the historic achievement.
Woods used the same clubs for the four successive major victories that compile the ’Tiger Slam’: the 2000 US Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship and 2001 Masters. He then switched to a new set seven weeks after claiming his second green jacket.
In 2000, Woods won the PGA Championship in a playoff over Bob May, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. In doing so, he became the first player to repeat as PGA champion since Denny Shute in 1937.
Twenty-two years to the day after Woods secured the third leg of the slam when he won the PGA Championship, the irons and wedges he used have sold at auction - and the bidding stunned organisers. The clubs had a starting bid of $25,000 on March 23 and bidding closed on Saturday night at $5,156,162.40.
It’s the first time the clubs have been sold since 2010, when private equity investor Todd Brock paid just $57,242 for the famous Titleist 681-T iron set. The clubs were posted by Golden Age Auctions, who also sold one of Woods’ backup Scotty Cameron putters last year for $393,300.
After winning the Masters in 2001 and completing the ’Tiger Slam’, Woods gave the famous clubs to former Titleist director of player promotions Rick Nelson and Titleist vice-president of player promotions Steve Mata. Mata reportedly took the clubs home with him and owned them until he put them up for auction in 2010.
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Golden Age Auctions, the company behind these auctions, have affidavits from both Nelson and Mata which verify the authenticity of the clubs. They also have the results from a polygraph test taken by Mata in 2010 as well as a copy of a September 2000 Golfweek magazine article.
The article detailed the exact specs of the clubs used by Woods to win the 2000 PGA Championship. The article perfectly describes the valuable clubs, including the 58-degree wedge being bent to 56 degrees.
The previous record for the most expensive piece of golf memorabilia belonged to Horton Smith’s green jacket from the inaugural Masters tournament, which sold for $682,000 in 2013. The most expensive sports memorabilia sold at an auction is $8,958,124 - £7,142,500 - when Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ shirt worn at the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, with the item being sold in May 2022.
