Tiger Slam Irons: The Holy Grail Of Golf Memorabilia?

Seems those industrious lads at Golden Age Golf Auctions have hit themselves a grand-slam home run.

And then some.

This just might be the Holy Grail of golf memorabilia.  The Golden Age guys have gotten their mitts on what appear to be, for all intents and purposes, the actual irons and wedges that Eldrick Tont Woods, aka Tiger, used circa 2000 and 2001 when he captured four consecutive majors starting with the 2000 U.S. Open and ending with the 2001 Masters.

The lads at Golden Age have taken major steps to land the appropriate provenance to back up the claim that these are the irons used by El Tigre.

Here’s the backstory behind these irons, that are now up for auction and are expected to produce a whopping seven-figure bid.

It was around seven weeks after that 2001 Masters victory that then Titleist Director of Player Promotions, Rick Nelson and Titleist Vice President of Player Promotions Steve Mata were the guys who delivered a new set of irons and wedges to Tiger at the Buick Classic, played that week at Westchester Country Club.  Tiger wasn’t as fussy back then as he is today and decided to just throw them in the bag for the tournament.

Nelson brought the clubs surrendered by Tiger to the Titleist Tour Van to make sure the specifications of the new set would match the old ones.  Tiger put the new ones in play for the Wednesday pro-am.

Tiger then gave the clubs to Nelson and Mata — something he’d never do today.  Tiger at the time, probably had no idea that he was forking over perhaps a million bucks to those two Titleist employees.  Mata made off with them, not sure why Nelson didn’t object.  But folks at Titleist knew Mata had the clubs.  He then put them up for auction in 2010.  Texas business guy Todd Brock bought them.

The collector market for serious golf memorabilia has exploded and after the Golden Age boys hounded him to no end, Brock agreed to put them up for sale and voila!  Here they be.

Just to give you an idea of some distant comps — Tiger’s BACKUP Scotty Cameron putter traded for $393,000.  Horton Smith’s Masters Green Jacket sold for $682,000.

These irons are two-thru-pitching wedge with two custom Vokey wedges, both stamped “Tiger.”  The 58-degree was bent to 56-degrees and hand-stamped 56.  Not sure Tiger used those wedges the entire length of time it took to win those majors.  Typically Tour players use their wedges for about 90 days before the grooves start wearing.  Take a look at the eight-iron in the picture above and the wear marks scream — user with incredible talent.

Our old pal Jim Achenbach wrote an article in the September, 2000, issue of Golfweek that detailed the specs of the clubs Tiger used to win the 2000 PGA and they match the specs of these irons exactly.

Mara also took a polygraph test in 2010 regarding the authenticity of the clubs and he passed that.

There is also a 2010 Affidavit of former Titleist Vice President Mata and a 2020 Declaration of former Titleist Director Nelson verifying clubs and corroborating exchange of the clubs.

So there you have it.  They can be yours if your pockets are deep enough.

So how high will the bidding go?  Will it surpass the million-dollar mark?

It should.

Just one question here:

If you were the lucky high-bidder for these, would you take ’em out on the range and hit balls with them?