Tiger Woods' contestant badge from his magnificent performance at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines sold Sunday night for $31,342, the second highest price ever paid for such an item.
The badge, sourced directly from the family of Torrey Pines Hotel manager Bill Friese, was consigned to The Golf Auction by his twin brother, Tom, following Bill's death this summer.
Contestant badges, in the form of pins and money clips, have served as credentials for golfers during major tournaments for more than 75 years. Partly because not enough high-profile ones have seen the light of day, the collectors' market for them is tiny.
Contestant badges from winners of majors typically go for $500 to $5,000, with the lone star being Payne Stewart's 1999 U.S. Open badge selling for $36,497 at The Golf Auction in 2021.
This badge was not just from any major. It's arguably from Woods' most memorable win.
Deadlocked after four rounds, Woods and Rocco Mediate staged a Monday playoff and again wound up tied. Woods prevailed on the sudden-death hole, playing 91 holes with two stress fractures and a torn ACL in his left knee.
The world was watching. There were 12.1 million viewers tuned into the fourth round, the second-highest final round viewership in the past 30 U.S. Open tournaments.
The Monday playoff was seen by 4.7 million viewers, the most watched golf telecast in cable history. The world seemingly froze. The number of shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange on that Monday, from noon to close, plummeted more than 9%.
"This checks a lot of boxes," Brad Roberts, vice president at The Golf Auction told cllct. "This is Tiger Woods' own badge from the toughest major win of his career. If you have interest in collecting golf, you have interest in this. As soon as we got this in house, I knew it was time to get the white gloves out."
Other notable contestant badges that have sold in the past included Jim Barnes' 1921 U.S. Open badge ($4,710), Hale Irwin's 1979 U.S. Open badge ($2,437) and Mediate's pass from 2008 ($4,603).
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.