Billion Dollar Golfer

Billion Dollar Golfer

By Evan Turinske

Tiger Woods is considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all-time. He notched 14 major championship win, and over 70 PGA Tour wins. This gives him the highest career earnings ever for a golfer. He had earned more than 100 million dollars in his career from just  the PGA Tour events (Tiger). Tiger Woods has made most of his money from endorsements,approximately 1.16 billion dollars worth. The question that has come up, should Tiger Woods retire?

Tiger Woods should retire because continuing to golf professionally doesn’t benefit him. First, Tiger Woods’ implicit cost is his body. Tiger Woods has had some injuries: ruptured ACL, torn Achilles tendon, multiple pinched nerves in the spine, and multiple surgeries on his spine. Tiger Woods has had a long list of injuries and the injuries haven’t stopped. He is currently recovering from his latest back surgery. His explicit cost is that he has to pay for all these surgeries. He has to pay for the medicine they give him, the doctor bills, and any rehabilitation that is required. This will hurt his profit because now he has more costs. He has also lost revenue because he is playing golf not as well. Some of his endorsements are starting to stop sponsoring him. He has also lost some endorsements because of scandals he has been involved in. All of these make his cost increase because with one of the scandals he got divorced. Tiger Woods had to pay 100 million dollars in the divorce settlements (Finn).

Second, he is giving up a lot to play professional golf again. The opportunity cost is that he could be doing anything else after he retires. “This latest operation that Woods underwent typically prohibits its recipients from returning to full activity for roughly six months” (Babineau). The six months that he has to recover from the surgery so that he can play golf again, could be used to spend time with his family, go on vacation, or even do endorsements.  He is giving up a lot so that he can play golf again, but not gaining much from it. Most of his revenue is from endorsements. Only around 12% of his revenue is from playing professional golf events. He makes the most money from endorsement deals. His economic profit is a lot less than his accounting profit because he gives up time and opportunities to do other things than golf training. This all affects his economic profit and makes it a lot worse than his accounting profit.

Tiger Woods should retire because his body is taking a massive toll. His implicit cost and his explicit cost will keep rising because of the more injuries he gets, the more money he will have to pay. Also, the implicit cost rises when he gets more injuries. Also, Tiger Woods already makes more of his money from endorsements, so he can do more endorsements instead of golf. Tiger Woods should retire now because he will be remembered for his greatness and not for how bad he is right now.

Works Cited

Babineau, Jeff. “Column: Tiger Woods Future Fades Faster with Latest Back Surgery.” Golfweek, 20 Apr. 2017, golfweek.com/2017/04/20/tiger-woods-back-surgery-golf-future/.

Finn, Natalie. “Tiger Woods' Life Never Went Back to Normal After His Cheating Scandal.” E! Online, E! News, 27 Oct. 2017, www.eonline.com/news/858507/tiger-wood-s-life-hasn-t- been-the-same-since-his-cheating-scandal-all-the-highs-lows-leading-up-to-his-dui-arrest.

Rovell, Darren. “Tiger Hits $1.3 Billion in Earnings.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 7 Jan. 2014, www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/10257010/tiger-woods-hits-13-billion-career-earnings- report-says.

“Tiger Woods Tops $100 Million in Earnings.” Golf.com, 10 Sep. 2012, www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tiger- woods-tops-100-million-earnings.