Tiger Woods Net Worth: Golf Legend's Career Earnings Keep Growing

A major championship has eluded Tiger Woods for more than five years, but that clearly hasn’t hindered the golfer’s earning power.

The 38-year-old last claimed a major in the 2008 U.S. Open, and since then he’s gone through an extra marital affair scandal that cost him most of his endorsements and a severe title drought. But according to reports the 38-year-old’s career earnings have reached $1.3 billion.

After five wins and the return of some of his top sponsors, Woods was 2013’s top earning golfer with $83 million in tournament winnings and endorsements, according to Golf Digest. The American made $8.3 million on the links last year, with the rest coming from deals with the likes of Nike Golf, Rolex, and Upper Deck.

Phil Mickelson was second on the 2013 overall earnings list with $52 million, followed by the long retired but much loved legend Arnold Palmer with an even $40 million.

Woods’s current net worth has been pegged at $500 million, according to wealth tracking website The Richest, making him the second richest African American behind television superstar personality Oprah Winfrey. According to GD, only $155 million of Woods total career earnings have come on the golf course, a mere 12 percent.

A sport as specialized and exclusive as golf has afforded Woods the opportunity to be one of the world’s highest paid athletes. Similar to professional racers in NASCAR and Formula One, along with boxers like Floyd Mayweather, the buck stops at Woods in the team-of-one world of golf.

In a story last year, Forbes ranked the earnings of top earning athletes to the revenue generated by their sports, with individual stars easily trumping players from the NFL, MLB, and NBA. The leagues are the highest overall earners, and only NBA stars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James cracked the top 15.

Woods’s earnings made up roughly 44 percent of the PGA’s revenue.

Showing no signs of slowing down, Woods picked up a $400,000 second-place finish last month at the Northwestern Mutual World Challenge at Sherwood. He’s next expected to play at the Famers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in three weeks.