$100 Million Mark No Match For Tiger
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By DERON SNYDER
Everything in life is relative, and sports are no different.
New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has signed two $200 million contracts during his career, earning $275 million from his present employer after getting $252 million from the Texas Rangers. Kobe Bryant has cashed Los Angeles Lakers paychecks worth $221 million thus far, with another $27.8 due next season. Ferrari once paid Finnish driver Kimi Räikkönen $153 million to race its cars for three years.
But a PGA Tour golfer reaching nine figures in career earnings was unprecedented … until Monday. It’s fitting that Tiger Woods is the first to pass the mark, because he’s the main reason prize money has risen so drastically since he debuted as a pro.
“It just means that I’ve come along at the right time,” Woods said Wednesday, on the eve of the BMW Championship. “We’ve had purse increases. Sam Snead won more tournaments than I did, and obviously he didn’t make the money that I did, just because it was a different era. I think, all that said, I’m not opposed to it.”
No one on the tour should mind, either, even though Woods’ presence tends to overshadow everyone else and whole tournaments at times. It took some getting used to, a black kid from Stanford who hadn’t won a pro event but who drew larger galleries and more face time on TV. He finished tied for 66th place in the 1996 Milwaukee Open and cashed his first PGA Tour paycheck, good for $2,544.
