Hamburg - Tiger Woods is the world's highest paid sportsman and one of the world's most popular. His earning ability and popularity was demonstrated as recently as this month's Australian Masters when he earned 3 million dollars in appearance money and drew some 100,000 spectators.
According to Forbes magazine, the 10 million dollars bonus that
Woods earned for winning the FedEx Cup in September took his total career earnings to above 1 billion dollars.
On Friday, Woods was slightly injured in a minor car accident when he apparently hit a fire hydrant and tree with his 2009 SUV-style Escalade at 2 am. Alcohol was not involved in the accident, reports said.
Woods won six tournaments on the PGA Tour in 2009 after returning from knee injury, but by his standards it may not have been as good a year as he might have expected.
For the first time since 2004 Woods failed to win one of the four major professional golf championships and remains four behind Jack Nicklaus's record of 18.
But at 33, it is thought to be only a matter of time before Woods adds that record to a remarkable portfolio which includes more career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer.
He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour.
Woods did not take long to run back into form after returning this year from reconstructive anterior cruciate ligament surgery on his left knee in 2008.
The surgery forced him to miss the final two major championships of 2008 - the Open and the PGA Championship - and any hopes of adding to his majors tally this year were to be dashed.
The Masters went to Argentina's Angel Cabrera in a play-off, while fellow American Lucas Glover took the US Open and Woods missed the cut in the Open Championship in Britain won by American Stewart Cink in a play-off with veteran Tom Watson.
The PGA Championships offered Woods the final opportunity of the year to add to his major tally, and going into the final round the world number one had a two-stroke lead.
Woods had never lost a major when holding the lead or a tie for the lead, but this time around, at the Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, he was found wanting.
Two bogeys on the front nine dropped Woods back to 6-under-par, giving his challengers a chance.
Y.E. Yang was the one who took up the challenge and a spectacular chip-in from the bunker at the short-par four 14th hole saw the Korean move ahead by one stroke.
Yang bogeyed the 17th hole but so did Woods and with the American off the green in two at the 18th, Yang birdied the final hole to clinch the biggest victory of his career, beating Woods by three shots.
