Tiger Woods' hole-in-one ball from his professional debut at Greater Milwaukee Open up for auction

Bob Gustin was in the right place at the perfect time while watching Tiger Woods make his professional debut at the Greater Milwaukee Open in 1996.

Along with his sister, brother-in-law and future wife, Gustin found a nice spot for his lawn chair on the 14th green and settled in to watch the final day of the tournament thanks to the free tickets he'd received.

Woods stepped up to the tee on the 14^th hole at about 11 a.m. on that Sunday at Brown Deer Park Golf Course. With a 6-iron in his hands, he smacked a ball about 200 yards that hit the green and took a few hops before rolling in for a thrilling hole-in-one.

He had no chance to win the tournament by then, but after entering the weekend with so much hype as a 20-year-old, it was the first big moment in a career that ended up filled with them.

This is where Gustin enters the story.  

The crowd gave Woods a thunderous ovation after his shot, cheering for him the entire way as he walked to the green to retrieve the ball.

Woods extended his right arm with golf ball in hand. Three seconds later, he tossed the ball into the crowd after Gustin’s brother-in-law, David Beck, and others pleaded for it.

It had the chance to be Beck’s shining moment. He was in good position, just like the baseball fan who recently caught New York Yankees star Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball that’s already worth millions.

But there was one problem for Beck.

The prized possession bounced off his hands and right into the lap of Gustin.

Finders keepers, right?

Gustin wasn’t some newbie when it came to sports memorabilia. The golf ball likely wasn’t worth then what it is now, but he was a serious baseball card collector and knew the value of keepsakes like this one.

Perhaps that’s why he went one step further than simply pocketing the ball. Gustin found a PGA staff member who got it into the hands of tournament director Tom Strong.

Strong had Woods autograph the ball and returned it to Gustin.

It was the first of three hole-in-ones Woods has had during his professional career.

“It’s obviously a great conversation piece,” said Gustin, who originally is from Racine but has lived in Nekoosa since 2003. “I was actually in Phoenix on a golf trip when he hit his second hole-in-one (in 1997). I said he should pay me to follow him around.”

Now, 26 years after the epic moment, Gustin is letting the Titleist 1 ball go as part of Heritage Auctions’ Fall Sports Catalog from Nov. 17-19.

It’s impossible to know what the hammer price will be when the auction is complete, but it’s easily going to go for five figures.

A full ticket from the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open that was graded a 9 by Professional Sports Authenticator − the largest third-party trading card authentication and grading company in the world − sold for $99,000 during the Spring Sports Catalog Auction by Heritage in February.

There are several tickets. There is only one ball.

It also should help that Woods is the most collectable player of any PGA golfer. He has won 82 PGA tournaments, which is tied with Sam Snead for the most in Tour history. His 15 Majors ranks second behind Jack Nicklaus’ 18.

“We have sold the Greater Milwaukee Open tickets for world-record prices and sold a few other items from his debut,” Heritage consignment director Chris Nerat said. “It’s really something you can’t compare anything else to. You could try, but you’d be wrong.”

Nerat has been waiting decades to find out who the owner of the ball was since watching the hole-in-one that day.

“I was at that event, and I knew he tossed it into the crowd,” said Nerat, who is a Marinette native. “I always thought, ‘Oh, my God, who has it? When am I going to find out who that is? What are they going to do with that ball?’

“I honestly thought I’d hear sooner than I did. This is retirement funds, or somebody could buy a house with some of the money. A couple years went by after we sold our first GMO full ticket for a record price, and I still didn’t hear. I didn’t know if I ever would. Then, sure enough, we sold a score sheet from that event (for $69,000 in August). When he saw that, he called. The rest is hobby history.”

Gustin already knows what he will do with some of the money from the auction.

It’s payback time.

“Whatever it goes for, I’m splitting that with my brother-in-law, David,” Gustin said. “He’s the one who shouted, ‘Throw it over here.’ He’s the one who it deflected off of before it came to me. We both had a part in me ending up with this ball, so we’ll both enjoy it after it goes to someone else.”