Tiger Woods' Sunday Red Masters Shirt Sells For Huge Sum At Auction

One of Tiger Woods’ iconic red shirts that he wore on the Sunday of the 2010 Masters has sold at auction for almost $140,000.

Golden Age Auctions began the bidding on the Nike shirt, which is signed by Woods, at $5,000 when the auction began in November. However, it didn’t take long for the asking price to rapidly increase, and reached over $40,000 by the end of the first day's bidding. Finally, the shirt sold for $139,348.80 after bidding closed on 10 December.

Woods wore the shirt during a round that saw him finish tied for fourth at the tournament, five shots behind Phil Mickelson. However, while he couldn’t produce a Major win wearing the shirt, one of the reasons it commanded such a high asking price is because it is thought to be the first Sunday red shirt worn by Woods that has ever been in circulation, and it could be the last.

Before the auction began, Ryan Carey of Golden Age Auctions explained to Golf Digest why he expected the shirt to be in high demand. He said: “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. A Tiger Woods tournament-worn shirt has never sold for $100,000. Expect that to change with this shirt.”

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Carey also explained how he persuaded the owner to auction the shirt to begin with. He said: “I went through a bunch of our past auctions of other Tiger shirts, and when I reached out for a shirt from Tiger’s 2007 Wachovia victory, the owner said he had traded it for a different shirt, which happened to be this one. I spent several months trying to convince him to let me put it up for auction. I wanted to put it up with the Tiger Slam irons, but he wasn’t ready. But once he saw our results with the Tiger irons, he reached out almost within an hour."

While the winning bid makes it the highest price a tournament-worn shirt of Woods’ has sold for, it is still far less than the amount received earlier in the year for his Tiger Slam era irons. They fetched an incredible $5,156,162 in April. In September, a Scotty Cameron putter signed by Woods sold for over $300,000.

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