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Tiger Woods becomes 'first billionaire sportsman'

The world's No1 golfer has avoided the pitfalls of many a talented athlete and maximised his commercial appeal to the full

Tiger Woods has matched his on-course success with his commercial appeal off it. Photograph: Tom Jenkins

Now we know why Tiger Woods has been throwing clubs and swearing on the golf course so much over the last few months - he was just over-wrought, anxious that he would lose out in the race to become the first billionaire athlete in history.

Well, now he can relax. He's won!

Forbes, the magazine of choice for those who like to weigh their money rather than count it, brings the news that Woods' $10m cheque for winning the FedEx Cup meant he cracked the 10-figure bracket.

Forbes has been tracking athlete earnings since before Tiger turned pro. Woods had earned a cumulative $895m going into 2009, by our estimates, from prize money, appearance fees, endorsements, bonuses and his golf course design business. If you add his $10.5m in 2009 prize money, the FedEx bonus and his take so far this year from his more than $100m in annual off-the-course earnings, Woods' career earnings are now 10 figures.

Woods has never been less than certain of his own commercial worth and has maximised it to the full. Good for him. There are plenty of talented athletes who have been stupid with their money, but he is not one of them.

Well done to Forbes, too. It will get a lot of publicity for a story, the accuracy of which, as it admits near the end of the piece, could only ever be confirmed by Woods' accountant or the great man himself. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that will never happen.

Woods is not a man prone to discussing his financial affairs in public, although for what it is worth I had a conversation with someone who might have been a position to know what the world's most famous athlete could command from the corporate world for his services (and more importantly his image rights) and when I asked if he would ever become a billionaire this person laughed and said, "You don't think he is already?"

He would probably make a better president than Obama as well He is a republican

"sportsman"

good idea adding A-Rod t the topic line charlie, since some people here care about him. otherwise I think there are as many Woods fans here as there are Chinese Communists and Muhammeddans .

Mohamedans are now referred to as Desert People not Rag Heads or Dune Monkeys ,Rug Riders or Camel Jockeys the correct PC term is Desert People we thank you in advance for your cooperation

Imagine if the economy was in better shape and Buick did not drop him

Can someone please define sports????

Does golf qualify under sports???

Of course it is a sport.

Now baseball, Football, Canadian Ice-Soccer and Ghetto-Jumpball can be argued as not sports......They are games.

It's a sport. You got to be in a good shape to hit all day long this stupid ball intro the hole. Honestly, I'm not patient, this sport is not for me !