LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods’ legacy is great. The greatest. But it’s not all good.
It’s complicated.
Golf’s leading ambassador, someone who has made incalculable contributions to the game – and, more, to people’s lives – has also done some dumb stuff.
And so this week’s return to action in the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club – his participation, at 47, a triumph in and of itself for Woods, who’s fighting through plantar fasciitis, a bad ankle injury caused by a 2021 car crash and the effects of back surgery before that – will be remembered, in part, for a crass joke.
One of the Earth’s most closely scrutinized individuals made a poor attempt – in broad daylight, in the middle of the first round – to surreptitiously hand a tampon to his playing partner Justin Thomas after outdriving him. It was a “prank” between friends, Woods called it, in the spirit of the ol’ you-throw-like-a-girl idiom, except, in this case: You drive it like a girl.
The stunt distracted from the actual golf at a tournament that benefits Woods’ TGR Foundation, and also from the celebratory nature of his participation after seven months away from competition.
I spent Thursday and Friday walking with his fans, admiring the diversity of his gallery and the democratic nature of watching golf in person, where recognizable actors like Timothy Simons and former All-Star ballplayers like Kenny Lofton have to jockey for position outside the lines with everyone else.
Asking myself – and people around me – how many of them learned they loved golf because of Tiger? How many people’s lives are better because of the game, and the bonds it’s engendered? How many of them were here, walking the grounds at Riviera this week, entirely because of Woods?
Many. So, so many.
And not only because of his dominance, his 15 major golf titles and 82 PGA Tour victories, but also because his presence as a man of mixed racial heritage on the golf circuit was so…
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