Tiger Woods' impact impossible to deny
By JOHN MEYER / Scripps Howard News Service
Aaron Woodard had an interest in golf long before Tiger Woods
arrived to shake up the PGA Tour and change the complexion of
the sport. Aaron started playing golf six years ago, which is
a long time when you happen to be 9. A few days after his ninth
birthday last summer, Aaron had his first hole in one.
He is the son of a golf pro, Denver director of golf Tom Woodard,
so the poster on his bedroom wall isn't Michael Jordan, it's Tiger
Woods. The hat Aaron wears says Titleist, not Nike. Aaron says
Tiger is his hero.
"Him and my dad," Aaron says.
Why Tiger?
"Because he wins a lot of tournaments and he doesn't throw
his clubs," Aaron says. "He's an inspiration to me because
he's good and he's smart."
Aaron doesn't mention that Tiger, like Aaron, is black. He
does say he sometimes stands on the first tee of a junior tournament
and thinks about Tiger at the Masters Tournament. "It just
feels good because he won the Masters," Aaron says, "and
if you try to be that good, you can win your tournament."
Nearly a year has passed since Woods made history at the Masters,
threatening to render Augusta National obsolete and making golf
seem cool even to minority children whose fathers aren't golf
pros. According to the National Association of Junior Golfers,
participation jumped from just under 2 million in 1996 to 2.7
million in 1997. The percentage of ethnic minorities increased
from 4 to 7 percent.
Woods' impact on the popular culture has been immense, too.
More than 35 books have been written about him already, and Forbes
said his $24 million in endorsement earnings last year made him
second behind Jordan. Shortly after Woods humbled his peers at
Augusta, they discovered the fringe benefits of becoming his supporting
cast: The PGA Tour signed a new television deal worth $100 million
per year, more than twice the previous arrangement.
"Tiger could be the first athlete to hit $1 billion in
off-the-course earnings," said his agent, Hughes Norton of
International Management Group. "At the rate he's going,
if he plays for 25 years, he'll hit it."
Woods routinely puts up staggering numbers, like playing the
Masters at 18- under par and winning by 12 shots, but it's harder
to gauge the cultural significance and emotional impact of his
achievements. Those effects were felt in millions of living rooms
across America in intensely personal ways, especially for black
Americans. Tom Woodard found himself at the home of James Flanigan,
the man who gave Woodard his first pair of golf shoes when Woodard
was a teen-ager. When Woodard went out on tour for the first time,
Flanigan raised money to pay his travel expenses.
In the depths of the depression in 1938, Flanigan hopped a
Rock Island railroad train in Kansas and "hoboed" to
Denver. He worked his way through the University of Denver, got
a law degree in night school, and in 1957 became Colorado's first
black judge. Four years later he was prevented from playing in
a Colorado Golf Association championship at Cherry Hills Country
Club in Denver because of his race.
Flanigan was deeply moved by Woods' stirring victory in Augusta.
"There was a great deal of elation to see a young African-American
play at the Masters and win it," Flanigan says. "I had
the fellows over to the house, had them bring some barbecue and
catfish. We sat there and were just overwhelmed."
One of the fellows was Jerome Biffle, who won the long jump
at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Nine years after Helsinki -- and
four days after Flanigan was prohibited from playing in the state
match play tournament -- Biffle and three friends were prevented
from playing at Park Hill Golf Club in Denver because "coloreds"
weren't allowed. They took Park Hill to court -- and lost.
Biffle didn't think about the 1961 Park Hill incident while
watching Woods win the Masters, but he did think about discrimination.
"It was phenomenal to me," Biffle said. "Blacks
were very limited in number on the golf circuit. I was delighted
to see him win that, and do as well as he's done. It opens a lot
of doors for blacks. I think you'll find more and more black kids
taking up golf because of him."
Not surprisingly, the image of Augusta National in Biffle's
mind wasn't dominated by dogwoods and azaleas in the years before
Woods claimed his green jacket.
"Augusta," he said, "was the place where they
weren't allowing blacks to play -- period."
Flanigan recalls meeting Tiger and his father Earl in 1980
when they put on an exhibition in Denver. Tiger was 4 1/2 years
old at the time.
"Lt. Col. Woods knew me, came over and talked to me about
little Tiger," Flanigan said. "He had Tiger demonstrate
(shots), must have been 45-50 yards away. That was just amazing.
He'd say, ÔTiger, come over here and show the fellows your
putting.' I was just flabbergasted a little fellow like that could
putt that well at that age."
Seventeen years later, Flanigan watched Woods flabbergast the
rest of the world.
"I think it's the most wonderful thing that could happen,"
Flanigan said. "The impact he had on golf generally was tremendous.
There isn't any question he has a great impact among all races
of people, to have a young black man with the accomplishments
of Tiger Woods to participate in the Masters, a tremendous impact.
I had so much pride, just that I could live to see this occur."
Now 82, Flanigan still plays golf regularly despite two heart
bypass surgeries.
On one of his many television commercials, Tiger Woods says
he wants to give something back, that he wants to make a difference.
Because championship golf is a very single-minded preoccupation,
he intends to do this largely through the Tiger Woods Foundation.
Established last year by Woods and his father, Earl, the foundation's
goal is "to create positive opportunities for underprivileged
youths and to emphasize the importance of parental involvement
and responsibility in the lives of their children." Its mission
statement says it envisions a world where people of different
races and ethnicities can reach "their highest potential"
by adopting Tiger's courage, creativity, work ethic, tenacity,
integrity, heart, self-esteem and drive for excellence. The foundation
seeks to achieve this with golf clinics, support programs and
events that promote racial harmony.
The foundation's executive director is Joseph S. Grant Jr.,
who was the first black graduate of the flight school at Stallings
Air Base, N.C., and a combat pilot in Vietnam. Grant met Earl
Woods in Saigon during the war, and they have been friends 35
years.
"This is not hype," Grant says with the gravity of
a preacher. "This is real. This is not trying to throw money
at a problem, which the federal government has done for years
and years -- and gotten nowhere with it. We're talking about a
few things we can do something with."
Through the foundation, Tiger held clinics for 12,000 children
in six cities in 1997. More than $120,000 was donated to the National
Minority Golf Foundation to be dispersed in the communities where
the clinics were held. This summer Woods will hold foundation
clinics in St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta, Louisville and Portland,
Ore. Woods wants to teach kids something besides golf.
"We came up with a program to come to grips with this
thing called peer pressure, and we aim it at the elementary school
level," Grant said. "I hope we have an effect before
the world has done irreparable damage to these kids minds."
In his recently released book, ÒThe First Coming, Tiger
Woods: Master or Martyr?" author John Feinstein takes a hard
look at the kind of man Woods is becoming. It is not always a
flattering portrait, but it is not unsympathetic.
"If there is one thing in life that Tiger cannot own outright,
it is his dream," Feinstein writes. "He has to share
that. He shares it with a father who honestly believes he is responsible
for Tiger's greatness. He shares it with a management company
which sees him as a money-machine that must be pumped dry before
he escapes. He shares it with corporate sponsors who expect time,
charm and victories in return for their millions. He shares it
with a public that wants him to be the sweet, sensitive guy it
sees in his commercials and is shocked and dismayed when he turns
out to be a 21-year-old who tells dirty jokes, stamps his foot
when he doesn't get his way and stalks angrily off of golf courses
when he shoots 74."
But Woods and his entourage understand his influence on young
people is enormous, and they seem to be taking the responsibility
seriously.
"The foundation is in a unique position to positively
influence parents and kids," Grant said. "Very often,
kids are having kids. Now we have the problem of helping parents
realize the significance of their role in the lives of their children,
and simultaneously teaching children to believe in themselves,
to dream big dreams, and that through hard work and determination
it's within their own power to make their dreams come true. If
we do this, our fondest dreams will be realized. The whole of
society will be the beneficiary, and that is what Tiger wants
to do."
(John Meyer writes for Rocky Mountain News in Denver.)
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