PARENTS WHO want to nurture the next Tiger Woods are going to have to dig deep if they want a future Masters winner in the family.

According to Money Pug, a price comparison and deal finder website, it costs £159,700 across a decade to earn £490,851 a year as a PGA Tour Pro.

With top golfers such as Rory McIlroy’s annual earnings reaching £29.6 million and Georgia Hall earning on average £656,807, that constitutes a whopping investment in training and equipment.

Some 1.5 million participants play golf in the UK, so the probabilities of making it as a European PGA Tour golfer are 0.02 per cent – as likely as a low handicap golfer (between 1-10) getting a hole in one.

In addition, the cost of surviving on the top global golf tours is around £207,000 per year, making sponsorship in golf so lucrative and fought over by each and every player.

Away from the tour, a comfortable living can be made by a club pro by earning £30,000 a year, or a head pro earning £54,000 a year.

POTENTIAL
Lee Whitbread, CEO at Money Pug, said: “The potential for a career in sport has grown extensively over the course of the last 30 years as the reach of professionalism has extended beyond the most common sports and now influences hundreds of sports, for men and women at various levels. “The most obvious change this has brought about is the increase of wages surrounding professional sport.

“With the majority of the top six sports in the country providing a wage well above the national average, there has been increased interest in these potential careers.”