“It’s unfortunate,” Woods said in 2002, “But it’s just the way it is.”

The argument could be made that it’s that way because people like Woods — who doesn’t want to say anything controversial when sponsors are paying him millions — don’t use their positions to influence issues. Woods has never been averse to throwing his weight around on golf matters, but he doesn’t take active stands on social issues, even when they are dumped in his lap.

It’s easy to see how Woods might dismiss the lynching comment as nothing to get excited about because there probably wasn’t much talk of it in the middle-class Southern California neighborhood where he was raised. He might not understand what the imagery of a noose means to folks more familiar with the stories behind what Tuskegee University estimates were 3,466 lynchings of black people in the United States from 1882 to 1968.

Others, though, do understand and would have felt heartened had Woods spoken out before the Rev. Al Sharpton and Golfweek made it an issue he couldn’t ignore — and then added nothing to the debate.

Woods points out — and rightfully so — that he’s involved in social issues every day of his life through charitable work that includes the Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, which has already reached more than 16,000 kids in just two years. Those kind of things are his focus, he says, and he’s turned lives around because of it.

Woods was at the center on Monday for the unveiling of a bronze statue of him, his arm wrapped around the shoulder of his late father. Beneath the statue was an inscription of a quote from Earl Woods:

“I challenge you to make a difference in the world, to reach higher and farther than you ever imagined.”

Words to live by, even when they have nothing to do with golf.

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