Tiger Woods has become the first billion-dollar sportsman after 13 years as a professional golfer.
According to Forbes, the $10 million [£6.2 million] bonus that Woods got for his recent FedEx Cup win pushed him over the $1 billion [£620 million] mark in total career earnings.
Up to the beginning of 2009, the world’s number one golfer had earned $895 million from prize money, appearance fees, sponsorship and from designing golf courses.
Adding together his winnings from this year together with his annual $100 million earnings, this makes Woods the first dollar billionaire sportsman.
Woods, 34, has been the world’s highest paid sportsman since 2002, when he overtook Formula One’s Michael Schumacher.
In the past seven years his earnings have rocketed as he diversified into golf course design.
The bulk of Woods’s earnings come from his long-term partnership with sports giant Nike, which paya him upwards of £20 million a year.
The Forbes report also found America’s wealthiest are getting poorer as a direct of result of the financial crisis, with the country’s ten richest individuals seeing $39.2bn (£24.5bn) wiped off their collective wealth in just a year.
The net worth of the 400 most affluent people in the US fell by $300bn in the past 12 months, from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion.
The findings come from the latest survey of America’s 400 richest people by Forbes magazine – the Forbes 400.
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September 1st, 2009 
