Forbes recently reported that golf megastar Tiger Woods is the first athlete ever to earn over $1 billion in earnings from prize money, appearance fees, his golf course design business, and endorsements. Tiger, who has been the worlds highest paid athlete since 2002, was pushed over the billion dollar mark when he received a $10 million bonus after winning the 2009 FedEx Cup.

His achievement is attributed mainly to his Nike partnership which rakes in $800 million a year, his annual $100+ million in off-the-course earnings, $10.5 million in 2009 prize money as well as his golf course design business which pulls in about $10 million per project. Forbes also mentioned that his age of 33 years old indicates that there’s many more Billions to be made in the future.

Who knew the big money was in a sport that doesn’t get as much hype. I know Tiger has a wide smile right now and I don’t blame him. If more reports like this surface I guarantee there’s going to be a lot of folks signing up to play golf.(Source 1)