Tiger Woods' irons from 2000-2001 Tiger Slam are available — for half million and counting | D'Angelo
Perhaps you have a spare $1 million hanging around. Or are getting ready to collect your winnings for picking that anticipated perfect March Madness bracket.
Or maybe you just decided to go without gas in the F-250 and Silverado for the next month or so.
Then have we got an investment for you. The irons and wedges Tiger Woods used during his Tiger Slam in 2000 and 2001 are up for auction. The starting bid on Golden Age auctions was $25,000. But don't start thinking "chicken feed."
After 36 bids, that number has soared to $527,846. With the auction closing April 9, $1 million just might get you a set of clubs with Tiger Woods' DNA on the grips.
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Pocket change, right? Certainly seems to be in this part of the country — which also happens to be where Tiger lives. The average price of a single-family home in Palm Beach County recently topped $1 million. So why not a set of Tiger's irons to display in the foyer at the foot of the winding staircase?
These irons helped Tiger win the 2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters, and become the first golfer to hold all four professional major golf championships at the same time.
Thus, the Tiger Slam.
The set features nine Titleist 681-T irons, including a 2-iron through pitching wedge, plus a 58-degree wedge and 60-degree wedge. The wedges have “TIGER” stamped on them. The 8-iron has a small, circular black smudge at the bottom of the face.
And before you ask, no, that will not get you a discount on the irregular rack.
The clubs sold for $57,242 in 2010 to Todd Brock, a Houston businessman who bought them at auction from Steve Mata. Mata was working as Titleist's VP of player promotions in 2001 when he acquired the clubs after delivering Woods a new Titleist prototype set. Tiger then gave the set to Mata as a gift.
Or did he?
Do we know these are Tiger's real clubs?
Although the irons come with an affidavit and polygraph results from Mata, a 2020 affidavit from former Titleist Vice President Rick Nelson and includes a 2000 Golfweek article by Jim Achenbach detailing the specs of the irons Woods used to win the 2000 PGA, which match the specs of the irons being sold, Woods denied in 2010 that Mata possessed the irons he used to win the Tiger Slam.
And Tiger's agent, Mark Steinberg, told Golf Digest this week that his client has the authentic set of irons used to win the slam in his house on Jupiter Island.
“Could there be replicas out there that he was generous in giving away? Sure,” Steinberg said. “But replicas versus authenticity ... read into it as you will.”
Ryan Carey, the owner of Golden Age auctions, said he has spoken with “dozens of people intimately familiar with these clubs” about their authenticity, according to Golfweek.
“We can say with 100% confidence that these clubs were used by Tiger Woods during his legendary 2000-01 seasons,” Carey said.
Carey is speculating the irons could fetch around $1 million, if not more. A Masters green jacket owned by Horton Smith set a record for golf memorabilia when it was sold by Golden Age for $682,000 in September 2013. Smith won the inaugural Masters in 1934 and again in 1936.
Brock has decided to cash in after keeping the irons in a frame in his office for about a dozen years.
“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.”
And to think, I'm only 21 losses away from a perfect bracket through the first three rounds of the tournament, and possibly a big enough payday to own a set of Tiger's irons.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tiger Woods' clubs from Tiger Slam could go for a million in auction
