By CHRIS RATTUE
So Tiger Woods will get $5.34 million to play at the New Zealand Open next year. A healthy sum, even though it's just a drop in the ocean compared with the $US5 billion ($11.7 billion) his dad reckons the boy will eventually be worth.
In honour of Tiger's extraordinary ability to squeeze blood from a stone, here are a few anecdotes about golf and money.
* After winning the 1970 US Open, Tony Jacklin returned to England and sent his clothes out to be cleaned. Among the items the cleaner found in the pockets was the $30,000 winner's cheque.
Second placegetter Dave Hill had to send his $15,000 cheque back to the US Golf Association because it had not been signed. This was rumoured to be deliberate, since Hill had criticised the Hazeltine course near Minneapolis where the championship was played.
* The prizemoney at the 1892 British Open was raised from £20 to a whopping £110. But the winner, one Harold Hilton from Liverpool, did not see a shilling of it. He was an amateur.
* Eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes was an obsessed and very good golfer, with a handicap which went as low as one. Before a club tournament, he badgered US Open winner Ralph Guldahl for advice, spending a whole day asking about bunker shots and so on.
After all, he could afford the phone bill. Hughes won the tournament, and a few days later Guldahl opened his mail to find a cheque for $10,000 from Hughes.
* Maybe this is the golf/prizemoney story to end all stories.
An insurance company sponsoring an amateur tournament in Britain wanted to give the winner a year's premium on a policy, but checked with the Royal and Ancient to see if it would jeopardise the golfer's amateur status.
They were informed by the crusty old R and A that the winner could accept the policy, but if he should die before the year ended and his heirs collect the benefits, he would have to forfeit his amateur status.
* A university student at Alabama had no such problems deciding on whether he should give up his amateur status. Jason Bohn made a hole in one at a charity tournament and thus won $US1 million.
It cost him his place on the amateur college golf team - but then he did receive about $5000 a month for the next 20 years.
* And finally, how about this for generosity. The great South African golfer Gary Player had privately expressed extreme disappointment at not winning the 1962 US Open, saying he had planned to give the prizemoney to charity.
When he did win three years later in St Louis, after a playoff with Australian Kel Nagle, Player stuck to his word. Of the $26,000 prize, he gave $5000 to cancer relief in memory of his mother, $20,000 to junior golf, and the remaining $1000 to his caddie.
Eat your heart out, Steve Williams.
Golf: Pocket your cheque and forget it
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