Tiger Woods at The Masters is not the bad guy; the media is

See: tiger woods, the masters, phil mickelson, billy payne, maters tv ratings

On Sunday, Tiger Woods finished what for anyone would have been a respectable Masters golf game, but what for him was a failure. Tiger Woods finished in 4th place. But the unwritten story - at least until now - is how Tiger Woods' appearance in the Masters brought people of color back to Golf if only for a weekend.

Tiger Woods just showing up at The Masters caused rating to jump 47 percent, and that was before Sunday's final round. And on Sunday, ratings were the best since the pre-New Media age of 2001, when a younger Tiger Woods brought viewers to Golf at a level not seen before. Sunday's third round wasn't the near-record this blogger predicted, but it was the third highest round in TV ratings in Maters history.

Tiger Woods at The Masters helped everyone, especially the media, yet we have the SF Chronicle's Bruce Jenkins, ever the fine sports writer and all really an around good guy, shockingly telling us that Tiger Woods is now the bad guy. And for evidence, Bruce went to all of the older, white male sports media guys to get their view.

Sorry for this, but Bruce Jenkins didn't talk to anyone black who wasn't part of the media, like my Mother. My Mom is a Tiger Woods fan, and so much so that my 76-year old parent believed there was a conspiracy to have Woods lose The 2010 Masters. I had to talk her down from that point of view. But you have to understand, as a kid my Mom walked to school while white kids rode the bus to school and occasionally threw rocks at her.

Yes, it's a much different time, but such vivid memories form the basis for suspicion of any media criticism of an African American public figure. And in this case, the media came off to many blacks (update: and whites) I talked to like it was trying to kick Tiger Woods while he was down, at least that's the expressed view of another friend of mine who will only go by the initials of "DG."

DG says the older white media basically could not stand that Tiger Woods had got away with being with a lot of white women and wanted to take him down. That's DG's view.

In fact, the only black guy I can think of who runs contrary to my point is Jason Whitlock, he of the Kansas City Star.

But J-Whit, as he's called, sometimes acts like he doesn't like blacks and seem to save his worst behavior for African Americans, like the family he famously insulted at the NBA All Star Game in Las Vegas.

To write that Tiger Woods is the bad guy and Phil Mickelson is the new hero is questionable at best, especially when Google Trends was dominated with searches related to unproven allegations of marital infidelity between Phil Mickelson and his cancer-stricken wife Amy, and just after his Masters win on Sunday and through Monday.

There are no saints here. Sorry.

The point is, it seems every older white guy in the media at The Masters was looking to beat up on the young black guy, Tiger Woods. And even one older white guy who wasn't in the media, Masters chairman Billy Payne, used the media platform The Maters provided to beat up on Tiger Woods. The end result was the media, especially the wing dominated by the older white men, came off as the real bad guy. That's the real, unvarnished truth.

Stay tuned.