Tiger Woods continues his absence from the PGA Tour this week, which roars on with The Open Championship.

Woods has won The Open Championship on three occasions throughout his stunning career so far, which hopefully isn’t over yet.

He has been plagued by injuries throughout his latter career, and has yet to make an appearance this season, with Woods told his PGA Tour wins have finished.

Fans did fortunately get a glimpse of the 82-time PGA Tour winner with a club in hand in the inaugural TGL season, but he remains absent from competition out on the course.

But the legacy he has already left on the sport has now been referenced by Brandel Chamblee when discussing the current situation between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

Chamblee said on The Smylie Show: “I always maintain that Tiger Woods is the most underpaid athlete in the history of sport.

“You look at what the PGA Tour headquarters looks like right now. It looks like the Taj Mahal! You look at what these guys are making.

“When people want to give credit to LIV for elevating the PGA Tour in terms of money. I am like hold on a second.

“LIV would never have come about if it hadn’t been for Tiger making the game cool. Golf would not be in the Olympics.

“No way the Saudis would want to buy golf if Tiger had not transformed the game. So before you want to applaud LIV for elevating the purses on the PGA Tour, it’s like woah, woah, woah.

“That’s like applauding the branches on a tree for being beautiful. Let’s look at the soil, the foundation. That’s Tiger Woods. He drove this game to another level. He created so much interest in it.

“The unintended effect of it is that he made the game also hugely expensive. Way more expensive golf clubs, way more expensive to join clubs. I am not going to say that is Tiger’s fault, but that is the impact of TigerMania.”

What are the most expensive green fees in the USA?

There are, of course, now utterly remarkable sums of money involved in modern day golf and indeed sport in general.

And while the sums certainly weren’t as significant in Woods’ prime as they are now, the legendary figure does still top the pile for career money leaders on the PGA Tour.

Course
Location
Price

Shadow Creek
Las Vegas
$1,250

TPC Sawgrass
Florida
$920

Pinehurst No.2
North Carolina
$788

Pebble Beach
California
$730

Wynn Golf Club
Las Vegas
$650

Whistling Straits
Wisconsin
$550

Most expensive green fees in the USA (Golf Monthly, March 2024)
As per the PGA Tour website, the 15-time major champion leads the way with a figure of $120,999,166, with Rory McIlroy the only other player on a nine-figure sum.

But as Chamblee mentioned, green fees have skyrocketed in recent times, with Woods undoubtedly playing a huge part in the popularity of the sport.