Can we leave Tiger Woods alone?
He’s the best golfer ever and one of the world’s richest athletes. He’s also scandal free, which is a lot more than can be said about many of his prominent athletic contemporaries. He’s even married to the mother of his child.
But because a part of his lineage, which is actually more Thai than anything else, is African American, he’s expected in some quarters – the usual quarters – to be a racial spokesman. His Foundation work is never enough. They want him to convert his fame into a forum and morph into a pitchman for black grievance.
The most recent example was the flap over his friend Kelly Tilghman, who is a broadcaster for the Golf Channel. She chose an insensitive and ill-advised way of underscoring the point that today’s young golfers have very little chance of beating Woods. Tilghman’s Golf Channel partner, Nick Faldo, had facetiously suggested that they all “gang up” on him. Tilghman over-the-topped that with: “Lynch him in a back ally.”
What? Wince? Of course. But a racist mortal sin requiring serious sanction, if not Tilghman’s head on a stake?
Woods knows Tilghman well enough to differentiate racist from reckless. He moved on after having accepted an apology. Ironically, those to whom the comment wasn’t aimed — the racial hustlers, professional antagonists and career victim-card players — wouldn’t.