Monday, November
25, 2002
Just
do it, Tiger: boycott the Masters
By Dan Le Batard
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
MIAMI - Tiger Woods
has this amazing power, and he's squandering it.
He has the ability
to instigate social change he believes in and won't do it.
He wields the biggest
club in all of sports but keeps it in the bag, preferring the
putter.
Woods needs to be
more than a politically correct jellyfish here, needs to address
something more than that little ball.
But instead of being
like Muhammad Ali or Arthur Ashe, he prefers the easier path cleared
by Michael Jordan, who sold everything and stood for nothing.
Cote, who has less
common sense than a 9-iron, says it is unfair to force social
responsibilities on a young kid still forming his opinions.
But Tiger put himself
in this position with one of his very first TV commercials, when
he stood behind the Nike swoosh and said there were courses in
America he couldn't play because of his skin color.
What?
The only time he'll
rise up is to sell his image and sneakers? The only good he's
going to do with this power is cash it in and stuff it in his
bank? This is how Tiger is going to become bigger than Gandhi,
as Tiger's father once claimed?
You can't be a man
of conviction part time, and only in commercials.
Instead of paying
lip service to how he thinks women should be allowed membership
into Augusta National Golf Club, Woods should, as The New York
Times suggested last week, boycott the tournament. He's the only
person in the world with the kind of power to instigate change
on this front. And, while we're at it, if Jack Nicklaus, David
Duval, Phil Mickelson and the other big names in golf feel women
should be allowed into Augusta, they should castigate the backward-thinking
rednecks there, too, by withdrawing their support and declining
to participate.
Tiger, buddy, you
say you believe women should be allowed at the home of the Masters?
Prove it.
You'll be accomplishing
far more, and be remembered far more fondly by history, by skipping
the tournament than for winning it.
I know the Constitution
allows private clubs to be private. But this is a very public
club once a year. The people at Augusta sound funny, adamantly
demanding to keep their privacy even as they invite television
into their tournament.
They'll allow a woman
in, eventually.
They just don't wish
to be told when to do so.
Blowhard Hootie Johnson
and his adversary, Martha Burk, need to go away now.
Woods is the one
with the power to make them do so.
__
©
2002, The Miami Herald.
Visit
The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com/
Distributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Start or Join A Discussion
about This Story
Send
the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend:
|
