According to Ryan Carey of auctioneers, Golden Age Auctions, the shirt has a little extra, being the only Masters Sunday shirt available:
“We believe this is the only Sunday red from a Masters Tournament that has been auctioned, and the others might not surface. The shirt is signed by Woods. Normally that would help the price a tiny bit, but I think it helps even more with this one. It has a massive inscription that says ‘2010 Masters Final Round,’ and Tiger doesn’t autograph stuff like that very often. It’s a huge autograph, too. This one is special that he did that.”
The shirt is also the first Sunday red donned by Woods following the infamous sex scandal in 2009 that saw Tiger take an extended break from the sport.
Strangely, Woods-connected items have not always been a big mover.
Various back-up Scotty Cameron putters have sold for between 80k to 100k, but signed scorecards from the US Open failed to make their $100 reserve.
Golf balls, though, now there’s a thing.
The ball sunk for victory at the 2005 Masters sold for over $30k, whilst standard signed Nike balls continue to surpass their first bid by some way.
Tiger may be a huge name in golf, but can he attract the sort of attention of the huge worldwide megastars.
Carey hopes so.
“Game-worn sports memorabilia, especially items photo-matched to a memorable moment or historic event, are setting records all around the world this year,” he explained. “A Michael Jordan jersey recently sold for $10.1 million at Sotheby’s, and a Diego Maradona soccer jersey recently sold for $9.3 million.”
The auction started yesterday with an opening bid expected of $5k, and with no way of knowing how the market will go, this could be the perfect time to ramp up the ‘he’s coming’ news.