Tiger should take stand on noose issue
Woods says controversy over, but perhaps he needs to keep it alive
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Kelly Tilghman would surely like it all to go away, even if that one comment brought her and the Golf Channel more publicity than a season’s worth of early-round telecasts.
So, too, would Tiger Woods. As his season begins, he would rather the talk about him be filled with the possibilities of a Grand Slam rather than images of a noose.
Usually the world’s best golfer and arguably its most famous athlete gets what he wants both on and off the course. So when Woods says the controversy over Tilghman’s remarks is over, he considers it just that.
Done. Finished. History. Ask him about the 5-wood he hit on No. 17 the other day instead of Tilghman’s crack that other players should “lynch him in a back alley.”
Actually, there were plenty of questions relating to golf when Woods made his first appearance of the year in the media tent at Torrey Pines on Wednesday. There should be, because he’s about to embark on a season that could be one of the greatest in the history of golf.
The buzz is about Woods winning four major championships, something that hasn’t been done in the same year since Bobby Jones did it in 1930. Woods himself came closest when he held all four majors in the 2000-01 season, and he seems more dominant — and confident — heading into this season.
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Inevitably, though, even the normally docile golf media was going to bring up the lynching comment, if only because this is Woods’ first tournament of the year and Tilghman’s first tournament since being suspended for two weeks. If nothing else, they needed a quote or a soundbite before allowing Woods to expand further on all things Tiger.
And that’s about all they got before moving on to the real reason Woods was at Torrey Pines — to win his fourth straight Buick Invitational on the same course where the U.S. Open will be played five months from now.
Woods said he and Tilghman are friends, and that it was unfortunate that Golfweek magazine further inflamed matters by putting the image of a noose on its Jan. 19 cover — a decision that cost its editor his job.
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“I know there are people who want me to be a champion of all causes, and I just can’t do that,” Woods said. “This is not the first time this has happened.”
No it’s not, and the common link between them all is that Woods tries his best to stay as far above the fray as possible. He froze out Fuzzy Zoeller when Zoeller made his infamous “fried chicken” remark, but didn’t try to use it as a public platform toward greater racial sensitivity. And he mostly kept quiet when controversy swirled at Augusta National over having women as members, saying that every club has the right to do what it wants when it comes to admitting women — or black golfers.
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