What is Tiger Woods's net worth and career earnings?
Tiger Woods is an American professional golfer who has a net worth of $800 million. Since turning pro in 1996, Tiger's career earnings top $1.8 billion. Adjusting for inflation, his career earnings easily top $2 billion. He is the highest-earning golfer of all time and was the highest-earning celebrity on the planet for many years.
The accolades he has earned are too numerous to list in their entirety, but some highlights include:
- 15 professional major tournaments
- 82 PGA Tour wins
- 41 European tour wins
- Five Masters wins
- He has been ranked #1 for more consecutive weeks than any other player
- He has the lowest scoring average of all time
- He has been crowned PGA Player of the Year 11 times
- Inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2021
Tiger Woods began playing when he was two, and by the time he was seven, he was regularly appearing on television programs and specials showcasing his preternatural golf skills. He continued playing throughout high school and college, and by the time he turned pro in 1996, everyone knew that he was going to quickly become the professional golfer to beat. He pretty much won everything for the next ten years, including 10 PGA Player of the Year Awards. He was the World #1 for a record 264 consecutive weeks from 1999 to 2004 and then another 281 weeks from 2005 to 2010.
However, his personal life took a major nosedive. After the death of his father in 2006, it was as if someone had let a feral cat out of a bag. He managed to destroy his marriage and family, lose a massive number of endorsement deals, and generally fall apart for the next few years. Though his golf game was still on par, pardon the pun, his reputation took a beating and has never quite recovered. Of late, he seems to have gotten back on track somewhat, but only time will tell.
Nike Deal and Notable Endorsement Earnings
Outside of tournament winnings, by FAR, Tiger's most lucrative source of income for his entire professional career was his Nike sponsorship.
Tiger made his professional golf debut on August 29, 1996. He won The Masters 228 days later, on April 13, 1997. After winning The Masters, the 21-year-old signed a 5-year $40 million deal with Nike and a 5-year $20 million deal with Titleist.
About a month later, on May 20, 1997, a day after winning the Byron Nelson Classic (the first tournament he entered after becoming the youngest player ever to win The Masters), Tiger signed a 5-year $30 million deal with American Express. The American Express deal, combined with his Nike, Titleist, and tournament winnings, brought his career earnings to $100 million. In other words, after turning professional, it took Tiger just eight months (264 days) to earn $100 million. By comparison, LeBron James' first Nike deal, which was signed in 2003, was worth $90 million over seven years.
In September 2000, Tiger signed his second Nike endorsement deal. This deal was worth $100 million over five years ($20m per year). In other words, between 1997 and 2005, Tiger earned $140 million from Nike alone. He likely earned a touch over $200 million from all deals during that seven-year period.
Tiger and Nike re-upped with an 8-year $320 million contract in 2005. In 2013, they signed what would turn out to be their final deal together, a 10-year, $200 million deal.
On January 8, 2024, Nike and Tiger revealed that they had parted company as brand partners. Between his first deal in 1997 and this announcement, Tiger earned an estimated $700 million from Nike.
Early Life
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods was born on December 30, 1975, in Cypress, California, to Earl and Tida Woods. He is their only child. He has two half-brothers, Earl Jr. and Kevin, and a half-sister, Royce, from his father's first marriage.
Tiger's mother is originally from Thailand. Tiger has called his ethnicity Cablinasian — as in Caucasian, Black, American Indian, and Asian. He was nicknamed Tiger in honor of his father's friend, Colonel Vuong Dang Phong, who was also known as Tiger. Woods grew up in Orange County, California. His father, Earl Woods, introduced him to golf before he turned two years old. Earl was a single-digit handicap amateur golfer. He was also one of the first African-American college baseball players at Kansas State University.
(Photo by: Ken Levine/Getty Images)
Amateur and College Career
In 1978, during a television appearance on "The Mike Douglas Show," Tiger putted against comedian Bob Hope. At age three, he shot a 48 over nine holes. At age five, he appeared in "Golf Digest" and on ABC's "That's Incredible!" Tiger won the Under Age 10 section of the Drive, Pitch, and Putt competition, held at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress, California, when he was six years old. When he was eight, he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships. He first broke 80 that same year. Tiger won the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive years from 1988 to 1991.
Woods first defeated his father when he was 11, and Earl was trying his best to win that game. Earl lost to Tiger every time from then on. Woods was a 15-year-old student at Western High School in Anaheim when he became the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion, a record that stood until 2010. He was named Southern California Amateur Player of the Year in 1990 and 1991. He was the 1991 "Golf Digest" Junior Amateur Player of the Year. In 1992, Woods became the first two-time winner of the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship when he successfully defended his title. That same year, he played in the Nissan Los Angeles Open, his first PGA Tour event. He was named the 1992 "Golf Digest" Amateur Player of the Year, the Golf World Player of the Year, and the "Golfweek" National Amateur of the Year.
The following year, Woods won his third consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur Championship; he remains the event's only three-time winner. In 1994, he became the youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship, a record he held until 2008. He was a member of the winning American team at the 1994 Eisenhower Trophy World Amateur Golf Team Championships. Woods graduated from high school in 1994 and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" among the graduating class.
Woods was heavily recruited by the biggest college golf powers. He chose to attend school at Stanford University, the then reigning 1994 NCAA champions. He enrolled at Stanford in the fall of 1994 and won his first collegiate event, the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational, that September. In 1995, he successfully defended his U.S. Amateur title at the Newport Country Club in Rhode Island and was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year, NCAA First Team All-American, and Stanford's Male Freshman of the Year (an award that encompasses all sports).
At age 19, Woods participated in his first PGA Tour major, the 1995 Masters, and tied for 41st as the only amateur to make the cut; two years later, he would win the tournament by 12 strokes. At age 20 in 1996, he became the first golfer to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles and the NCAA individual golf championship. He left college after two years to turn professional in golf.
Getty
Professional Career
Woods turned pro in August 1996 at age 20 and immediately signed advertising deals with Nike and Titleist that ranked as the most lucrative endorsement contracts in golf history at that time. Woods was named "Sports Illustrated's" 1996 Sportsman of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. On April 13, 1997, he won his first major, the Masters, which he won by 12 strokes in a record-breaking performance and became the tournament's youngest winner at age 21. Two months later, he set the record for the fastest ascent to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings. After a lackluster 1998, Woods finished the 1999 season with eight wins, including the PGA Championship.
Woods was the dominant force in golf from 2000 to 2010. He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 weeks). During this time, he won 13 of golf's major championships.
The next decade of Woods' career was marked by comebacks from personal problems and injuries. Woods fell to number 58 in the world rankings in November 2011 before ascending again to the No.1 ranking between March 2013 and May 2014. However, injuries led him to undergo four back surgeries between 2014 and 2017. Woods competed in only one tournament between August 2015 and January 2018, and he dropped off the list of the world's top 1,000 golfers. On his return to regular competition, Woods steadily progressed to the top of the game, winning his first tournament in five years at the Tour Championship in September 2018 and his first major in 11 years at the 2019 Masters. In 2022, Woods returned to play in his first professional tournament since his 2021 car crash, participating in the Masters Tournament. He made the cut and finished 47th at 13-over par, 23 shots behind the winner, Scottie Scheffler.
Woods has held several golf records. He has been the number one player in the world for the most consecutive weeks and the greatest total number of weeks of any golfer in history. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record 11 times and has won the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times. Woods has the record of leading the money list in ten different seasons. He has won 15 professional major golf championships and 82 PGA Tour events. Woods leads all active golfers in career major wins and career PGA Tour wins. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam and the second golfer (after Jack Nicklaus) to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships. He was also part of the American winning team for the 1999 Ryder Cup. In May 2019, Woods was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the fourth golfer to receive the honor.
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Personal Life
Woods met Elin Nordegren, a Swedish former model and daughter of former minister of migration Barbro Holmberg and radio journalist Thomas Nordegren, during The Open Championship in 2001. Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik employed her as an au pair. They got engaged in November 2003 and married on October 5, 2004, at the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados. They lived at Isleworth, a community in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando, Florida. Woods and Nordegren's first child was a girl born in 2007, whom they named Sam Alexis Woods. Woods chose the name because his father had always called him Sam. Their son, Charlie Axel Woods, was born in 2009.
He took a self-imposed hiatus from professional golf from December 2009 to early April 2010 in an attempt to resolve marital issues with his then-wife, Elin. Woods admitted to multiple infidelities, and the couple divorced on August 23, 2010.
On March 18, 2013, Woods announced that he and Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn were dating. They split up in May 2015. From November 2016 to August 2017, Woods was in a relationship with stylist Kristin Smith. Woods announced in November 2017 that he was in a relationship with restaurant manager Erica Herman, following speculation about their relationship that began the month prior. But in 2023, she filed a suit against Woods in relation to a non-disclosure agreement claiming she was owed $30 million after Woods' trust's employees locked her out of their residence and removed her personal belongings.
On May 29, 2017, Woods was arrested near his Jupiter Island, Florida, home by the Jupiter Police Department at about 3:00 am. EDT for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He was asleep in his car, which was stationary in a traffic lane with its engine running. He later stated that he had taken prescription drugs and did not realize how they might interact together. On July 3, 2017, Woods tweeted that he had completed an out-of-state intensive program to tackle an unspecified issue. At his August 9, 2017 arraignment, Woods had his attorney, Douglas Duncan, submit a not guilty plea for him and agreed to participate in a first-time DUI offender program and attend another arraignment on October 25. At a hearing on October 27, 2017, Woods pleaded guilty to reckless driving. He received a year of probation, was fined $250, and was ordered to undergo 50 hours of community service and regular drug tests. He was not allowed to drink alcohol during the probation, and if he violated the probation, he would be sentenced to 90 days in jail with an additional $500 fine.
In February 2021, Woods was involved in a severe car crash when his vehicle rolled over while he was traveling north along Hawthorne Boulevard in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. It was found that Woods had been driving over 80 mph before he crashed, and Tiger suffered multiple leg injuries and had to undergo surgery.
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Tiger Woods Net Worth – How It Breaks Down
Tiger's first revenue comes from winning tournaments and endorsing products. Since turning pro in 1996, Tiger has earned $118 million on the golf course (including the $2.07 million he won at the 2019 Masters). That amounts to 7.6% of his total career earnings to date. As with similarly dominant athletes like Michael Jordan and Lebron James, the bulk of Tiger's fortune comes thanks to endorsements. Roughly 92.4% of his career earnings, around $1.6 billion, are from endorsing brands such as Nike, Gatorade, American Express, Asahi, General Mills (Wheaties), Golf Digest, Rolex, Gillette, Accenture, Tag Heuer, AT&T, EA Sports, NetJets, Upper Deck, TLC Laser Eye Centers, and Buick.
Gatorade developed a custom-branded drink for Woods called "Gatorade Tiger." The Gatorade deal alone was worth $100 million over five years. At one time, Tiger Woods earned $20 million per year to endorse Gillette along with fellow superstar athletes Roger Federer and Thierry Henry. Tiger commands $10 million to design golf courses worldwide and can earn as much as $1.5 million just to show up to a golf tournament.
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Real Estate and Other Assets
In the wake of his separation and divorce from Elin, Tiger constructed a massive oceanfront new estate in Jupiter, Florida, on 12 acres. At the time of its completion, the home was estimated to be worth $60 million. Today, the property could be worth $75 to $100 million. The property features a practice golf course (naturally), an oxygen therapy room, and at least four swimming pools. The sprawling compound has a lap pool, dive pool, children's pool, reflection pool, and a water fountain.
- Tiger owns a $25 million yacht named "Privacy." He sometimes sleeps on the yacht during tournaments that are near water.
- His PGA tour Pension plan is worth at least $20 million.
- He owns a $54 million Gulfstream G550 private jet. The only time Tiger has flown commercially in the last 15 years was in January 2017, when he traveled from Los Angeles to Dubai.
- The previously mentioned a 12-acre ocean-front property in Jupiter, Florida, that is worth at least $75 million
- In the wake of the 2009 financial crisis and his career slowdown, Tiger launched a course design business. He has designed courses worldwide with plenty of work on his plate.
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Tiger Woods Career Earnings Year By Year
(Credit: Golf Digest)
2016: $34.61 million total ($35.5 million from endorsements)
2017: $43.3 million total ($42 million from endorsements)
2018: $36.1 million total ($35.5 million from endorsements)
2019: $65 million (includes $2.07 million from 2019 Masters win)
2020: $62.3 million
2021: $73.5 million
2022: $68 million
Tiger Woods' total career earnings as of this writing are $1.8 billion
Marriage And Divorce Settlement With Elin Nordegren
Tiger Woods married Elin Nordegren in 2004. Woods and Nordegren's first child, a daughter named Sam Alexis Woods, was born in 2007, and their son, Charlie Axel Woods, was born in 2009. An infidelity scandal involving Tiger rocked the couple in 2009 and eventually led to the end of their marriage. With the controversy surrounding Tiger's divorce from Elin Nordegren, his game and his relationships with sponsors have suffered, costing him millions in potential earnings. He also paid Elin $100 million worth of assets, including cash and real estate.
Tiger Woods Net Worth Milestones
1995: $10,000 (before turning pro)
1997: $7 million (signs first deals with Nike and Titleist)
1999: $40 million
2001: $50 million
2003: $100 million
2005: $250 million
2009: $500 million (career earnings surpass $1 billion)
2010 $400 million (divorce settlement finalized)
2016: $700 million
2019: $800 million
In 2009, when his net worth was $500 million, Tiger was the second-richest person of color in the United States behind Oprah Winfrey, who was worth $2.5 billion at the time.
