SWINGING FOR THE FENCES

By Matt  Watson

There you have it fellas.

Next time your wife says you can’t afford a trip to the country club, next time your girlfriend tells you miniature golf is a dumb idea for a date, or the next time your boss calls you to come in while you’re at the driving range – tell them you’re just working on becoming a billionaire.

Forbes announced last week that by its estimates, Tiger Woods has become the first-ever billionaire athlete. His career earnings, coupled with numerous lucrative endorsement deals, have pushed him past the 10-figure mark. That’s a one followed by nine zeroes. The world’s best golfer is a millionaire a thousand times over.

We talked about Jerry Jones in this space last week, an oil man who turned millions into billions by investing in a professional sports franchise. But Tiger has made his money by being the best in the universe at a sport, which is hit a small white ball with a steel club farther and more accurately than anyone else in the history of the world.

He’s so good at what he does and so good at selling himself that he’s earned one billion dollars just hitting the ball and smiling on TV.

According to Forbes, Tiger had accumulated $895 million last year in tournament prize money, PGA Tour bonuses, appearance fees, advertising deals and his golf course design company. A lot of that money came from Nike, which launched a golf line based solely on Woods’ endorsement, and Gatorade, which for some reason thought people would want to drink something called “Tiger” that tastes like jello.

Only two athletes have come anywhere near Tiger’s earning power, one a guy named Mike who couldn’t even make his varsity basketball team in high school, and another Michael who drove cars in circles for a living. Michael Jordan has made an estimated $800 million and counting off his basketball talent and Air Jordan sales, while former Formula One racer Michael Schumacher eclipsed the $700 million mark.

One billion dollars. With that chunk of change, Woods could afford 20 million copies of Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’10 for Xbox 360, or 40 million fitted hats with his “TW” logo on them. Or he could go to ebay and find a flag from the 1997 Masters (the first of his 14 Major victories) autographed by Mr. Woods himself, which is going for $25,000 right now, and buy it 40,000 times.

If he came to Fayetteville, Tiger could play 200 million rounds of Gator Golf and rent Caddyshack a billion times at Redbox. He could pay the tuition, fees and housing for all 20,000 students to attend the University of Arkansas – for four years.

Had Woods had a 10-digit fortune a little earlier, he could’ve been in on the $900 million sale of the Chicago Cubs that was approved by MLB owners today. Had he had a billion dollars way, way earlier, he could’ve made the Louisiana Purchase – 67 times.

Once Tiger doubles his fortune, he could buy the African nation of Zimbabwe, whose gross domestic product is $1.9 billion. He could’ve financed two-thirds of the construction of Cowboys Stadium, and he could put a tiny dent in the United States federal deficit – a billion-dollar donation would knock off about a hundredth of a percent of the United States’ estimated $11.7 trillion-dollar debt.

The point is, a man with a stick made a billion dollars playing a game. Only a portion of that actually came from winning golf tournaments, but his prowess on the links has vaulted Tiger Woods to a prestigious list made mostly of the greatest businessmen on the planet. The irony is Tiger made his millions upon millions doing what many of those men do on vacation.

So next time you slice a ball into the woods, roll up your pants to fetch your ball from a water hazard or want to snap your club in half, just remember that there are billions to be made if you do it right. Anyone can “drive for the show,” and some can “putt for the dough,” but you’ve got to put it all together and do a few commercials here and there if you want to take 10 figures to the bank.

Matt Watson is the sports editor of The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Wednesday.