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Tiger Woods’ old clubs are still worth a fortune — even two decades later.
As he was playing in his first tournament in over a year, making the cut at The Masters, the irons he used to win the famed “Tiger Slam” from 2000-01 netted a pretty penny at an auction.
The Titleist 681-T iron set that helped him win four straight majors went for a record $5,156,162 at Golden Age Auctions. The previous high for golf memorabilia was Horton Smith’s green jacket, which sold for $682,000 in 2013.
Private equity investor Todd Brock was the owner of the clubs and put them up for sale at the auction. He purchased them in 2010 at an auction for $57,242 from Titleist vice president of player promotions Steve Mata.
“I’ve had them for 12 years now, and I haven’t told anybody that I owned them. They were in a really nice frame in my office and I’m not an investor in memorabilia, so nobody was seeing the irons,” Brock said, per ESPN. “I’ve had the opportunity to see these for 12 years and it’s like a Rembrandt, where somebody takes it to their castle and it’s never seen again. I felt blessed that I got to hang out with them and look at them, but it’s time for somebody else to do something bigger and better with them.”
Woods completed the “Tiger Slam” by winning the 2001 Masters after he won three straight majors in 2000: the US Open, British Open and PGA Championship.
It is worth noting that Woods said in 2010 that the irons he used to win those majors were in his garage. Mata had previously said Woods gave him the irons at the 2001 Buick Classic when he needed to change out the grooves.
“He may have my set of irons, but they’re not from those tournaments,” Woods said then. “They’re in my garage.”
Mata took a polygraph test in 2010 to prove the clubs’ authenticity, according to ESPN, and Golden Age Auctions reportedly confirmed the authenticity through photo matching.
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