Tiger Woods' golf hiatus? Reads more like "Tiger Woods quit golf" to me. Man, I can't believe it. When I saw the news, it came from the
British tabloid The Sun so I did't jump on it as fast as if it were at TMZ.com; I waited. Then the
Washington Post sent me an email with the bad news that I then saw on
Tiger's website:
Tiger Woods taking hiatus from golf:
I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children. I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try.
I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What's most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing.
After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.
Again, I ask for privacy for my family and I am especially grateful for all those who have offered compassion and concern during this difficult period.
My thoughts then turned to an exchange I had with my dear Mum at the Atlanta Airport because she said that Tiger shouldn't have allowed himself to be taken in by "those blondes" to which I said to Mom it was Tiger Woods' choice to go after them. But my Mom's point stuck in my head for a different reason: something else she said to me:
I'm 75 years old. I can remember when I had to drink out of a different fountain and they (white people) would throw rocks at us as we walked to school. So for me, seeing Tiger win is something else.
See, black folks like my Mom watched any golf event Tiger Woods was in no matter how small and insignificant it was. Indeed, people of color tuned in to see Woods because - and I don't give a crap what he said he was - he's African American and male and winning. A lot. Seven times this year alone.
And that's why
Tiger Woods' hiatus from golf's going to hurt golf. Golf will go back to be a boring rich white man's game in the eyes of many simply because Tiger's not playing. And you know what will happen: sponsor money, once abundant when Woods was playing, will rapidly diminish in an already massively tight economy.
Events without Tiger Woods
watched their ratings drop 50 points, and attendance figures lessen. My concern is what a prolonged, say two year absence, from golf will do to the game. My prediction is it will set the game back 20 years. After a time in the not too distant future, we'll talk of "Golf BT" and "Golf AT" or before and after Tiger Woods.
But Woods' departure will also have an impact on how older African Americans think about racial progress. Many older black I talked to - and I mean over 65 years old - loved Tiger Woods and his family and still do. But they continue to ask why some black athletes choose blonde women and this episode will only fuel those questions even more. Is the concern racist? Well, it's race conscious but where it could become racist is when negative characteristics are attached to anyone blonde when the conversation comes up.
Sticking together
That's bad and I've seen it happen already.
I think what could have ended all of that is if Tiger had not quit golf and repaired his marriage at the same time. But according to the new obviously accurate Sun, Woods wife Elin Nordegren said he's got to chose between "Golf and her". She won and now she calls the shots in the Woods household, giving new meaning to the allegations of what she did with a golf club that Thanksgiving night.
So Woods followed her instructions and at least, I hope, his marriage will be repaired over time. Tiger's got a great wife; it appears that having a lovely blonde woman wasn't as great a thing as wanting one. That's something Woods and
some black athletes will have to overcome: not seeing her or any woman as a color to gain in conquest, but a person to love and cherish. If Tiger's marriage were as we thought it was, we wouldn't be having this conversation and some older blacks would be comfortable with the new society around them. But it isn't and they're not.
Older African Americans - preaching staying within the race for decades - bear some blame for the Woods problem. When I was little, less so now by far, talking about the ills of interracial dating was an obsession that to me was at the level of a disease. It's no wonder some of their kids wanted to find out what dating someone blonde was all about. Really, who cares in retrospect, but some people can't get beyond their own color issues to see straight.
The past is over; something my Mom says all the time.
Woods staying and repairing his marriage will calm these turbulent racial waters. Does Tiger Woods' have that kind of impact? Look, you can't take in $100 million a year and not have some impact on industrial society. Tiger Woods, for all of his faults, is now and will remain a symbol of modern American culture. What he does impacts all of us. Tiger's quitting hurts Golf. Tiger getting a divorce sets back interracial marriage. I'm rooting for Tiger Woods to come back roaring again at both for the sake of America.
