Future value of Tiger Woods golfing career put at $175 million

The future value of Tiger Woods’s golfing career, up to the age of 50, is approximately $175 million (€163 million), according to professional services firm Kroll. With Woods now aged 46, this implies he is likely to make – between prize money and endorsements – just under $44 million annually for the next four years.

To showcase its expertise in valuations, Kroll annually calculates the Future Career Value (FCV) of the world’s top golfers. Last year Rory McIlroy topped the leader board with $401 million in FCV followed by Justin Thomas ($299 million) and Bryson DeChambeau ($225 million). The top 10 professional golfers were estimated to have a combined FCV of $2.2 billion. Shane Lowry was next best of the Irish in 30th position with $57 million in FCV.

Woods, who is due to play at the JP McManus pro-am event at Adare Manor in July, made an unlikely comeback to golf at the Masters at Augusta last month since being involved in a serious car crash in February 2021, in which he nearly lost a leg. It is estimated that Woods has earned in excess of $1.5 billion over his career to date.

Niall Cribben, managing director of Kroll’s valuations advisory, said the firm’s annual estimates focus on the paper value of players up to age 50, at which point players become eligible for the Legends Tour.

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“As such, for Tiger, in our study last year, he only had a few years of potential earnings remaining. We began by projecting what his future tournament winnings might be,” Mr Cribben said.

“Given his particular situation, this included numerous scenarios in which he was unable to return to the tour and never earned any additional tournament winnings, as well as some scenarios where he was able to make a return. Then, based on those scenarios, we projected out his potential endorsement earnings and player impact programme earnings,” he said.

“In total, we estimated a value up to age 50 of $150 million, ranking (Woods) ninth overall. The vast majority (over 95 per cent) of that value was expected to come from endorsements and/or the player impact bonus, as opposed to tournament winnings,” he said. Woods’s high-profile return to top competition this year has added $25 million to his FCV.

Mr Cribben also noted the Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway LIV golf series and the possible implications for players who join in terms of PGA sanctions had the potential to throw the current set of valuations into disarray.