In an effort to raise money for the Los Angeles wildfires, photographer Robert Beck sold some of his collection on his Instagram page earlier this year.
On Feb. 14, he offered three 16-inch by 20-inch prints for sale. One of them was a picture of Tiger Woods on the first playoff hole at the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla, taken 25 years ago this Sunday.
The photo featured Woods pointing at the hole, celebrating his 25-foot putt to tie him with Bob May in a three-hole playoff that Woods eventually went on to win.
“This print has a couple of small creases in it,” Beck noted. “For that reason, I’ll let it go for $75.”
Golf collector Curtis Loop just happened to be among the fewer than 10,000 people following Beck. He bought the photo.
“Moments are the most important thing to collectors,” Loop said. “This was the most iconic shot from the Tiger Slam.”
In his Instagram post, Beck made it clear the image was used for the cover of Sports Illustrated the following week. Loop was more focused on whether it was the exact image from Tiger Woods’ Upper Deck rookie card, which debuted in June 2001.
“If you go to Getty (Images), you will see there are dozens of shots from photographers that look pretty close to this with different looks of people in the background,” Loop said. “When I bought it, I had no idea, but at the very least it would be a cool print to put on my wall.”
A few weeks later, Loop said he received the photo and was able to confirm it was the same shot used for the rookie card.
“It sat around for a couple weeks,” Loop said. “I didn’t know if I was going to frame it or not.”
Things changed when Loop looked on the back of the photo, which was not shown by Beck in the Instagram post.
Beck only said the photo he was selling was a “print.” Loop surmised by the back of the photo it was older photo paper, which gave it a chance to be a Type 1.
A Type 1 photo, as classified by grader PSA, is a photo taken from the original negative printed within two years of the photo.
Why does this matter?
Because Type 1 photos have risen in collectibility over the last 10 years, particularly those connected to rookie cards.
For example, a Type 1 photo used to create Mickey Mantle’s 1951 Bowman card sold for $843,750 at Heritage Auctions in April 2024.
The Type 1 used for Jackie Robinson’s 1948 Leaf Rookie sold for $360,000 in 2001, and the Type 1 used for Joe Namath’s 1965 rookie sells next week — it estimated to be worth at least $200,000.
Loop, who played golf at Georgetown and has worked for golf auction house Golden Age since 2001, was ecstatic when PSA came back with a letter declaring the photo was indeed a Type 1.
“We seen four others of this shot,” said Henry Yee, PSA’s chief photo authenticator. “Three were outright copies, and the other one was printed in 2010.”
Yee said the reason these shots are so rare in Type 1 is because printing was expensive, and the photographers had no reason to print because they had the original negative.
The photo went up for bid at Golden Age on Thursday at 6 p.m. ET. By 10:30 am ET on Friday, bidding had already reached $13,483, including buyer’s premium. At that price, it already ranks as the highest-priced Woods Type 1 photo, surpassing the $11,075 paid for a 1992 photo of Woods, then in high school, walking and playing Pinehurst.
Bidding closes Aug. 24.
Golden Age Auctions owner Ryan Carey told cllct the auction house will donate $2,000 from the sale of the photo to United Way of Los Angeles, the original charity Beck had earmarked for the sale of his photos.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country’s leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.
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