Golf and the Black Man

    Two subjects that I know less about than many, golf and black men, but the two things combined has my interest this weekend. Indulge me, please.

    For the record, I have little experience with the game of golf. It has mostly been peripheral to me, compared to many other sports. I do not play golf, I do not watch it much. I started paying more attention to it in the late 1990s when Tiger Woods came on the scene. Like many Americans or perhaps millions of others around the world, many of us started to care and pay attention. I had a serious girlfriend, for example, who raved about Tiger. She was white, if that matters. That fact might have increased my awareness, I suppose. Others everywhere were talking about him more in the media, too.

    He transcended the sport in many ways.

    Until a Black guy (his mom is of Thai ethnicity) broke into this sport, it seemed that this slow-moving and rather dull competition was an elite, wealthy, white man's thing. Wrong or not as a characterization, Tiger brought a lot more eyes to the golf. This is hard to argue against.

    It is a sport that requires some wealth or special access to play and be a part of, in most quarters of the world. Many Black communities had little or no access to it. I did not have much of it, although I could have had I pressed or cared. But, I did not. I played basketball, ping-pong, other sports. I was decent at swimming, playing some football, baseball, volleyball, tennis.

    Conjecture about Some People and Thinking

    I know a lot more about basketball and people who play that sport. Perhaps basketball has been over-indulged by me? It is more accessible and real to me. For me, (and I believe many folks) golf is still more a wealthy, staid, and boring affair, in general. However, it has become more diverse and open to more of the masses, to its credit. Which has brought newer and more diverse eyes to it. I know that some of the best NBA players of all time, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, have spent a lot of time caring about golf. Neither of them grew up with golf, I presume, and maybe I am wrong-- but nonetheless, neither could become elite in this game despite their efforts and interests, plus a lot of money and wagering.

    Welcome to the "white man's world", some might say? The rich man's sport? That may be too simplistic a depiction, or some might accuse me of being racist for thinking such a thing. Again, I am not Black. In my 50 plus years of living on the planet, I have gotten to know and be friends, colleagues, and at times intimate partners with many men and women of African-American heritage. Incidentally, this past month a buddy of mine was killed by a drunk driver: I thought of him a lot. He was a great Black man, and race or nationality or no, he was a sweet person. And, for the record, I have reflected the last few years of my time in the military, and generally I have concluded that my cohorts of the African-American demographic have been better than some of the white people that I have dealt with, on average. This has been in my head, admittedly.

    I think of it as a realistic assessment, my views of golf being more a cultural part of the U.S. and the globe's white world, from what I know. Again, I could be wrong, but please continue to indulge my thoughts. The history of segregation and less visible involvement of ethnic minorities and golf is relatively an easy call. 

    Tiger's Psychology and Uniqueness

    Many of us know or at least believe that the U.S. military brought new opportunities to the African-American community in our country over the last generations, more and more since World War II. I think that Tiger's dad was one of these people. He also, (again, gathering this from a general observation) met Tiger's mother because of the dad's service in the Army. Perhaps his dad would have met her otherwise, but I believe the Army set up this connection.

    Tiger himself was a product of the Army father socially, for instance, how at young age he was disciplined and exposed to the game of golf in the first place, likely due to military privileges. Later in life, as a peak performer and one of the best golfers of all time, I read in a lesser publicized article (around 2009?) that Tiger seriously hurt his knee doing serious training with Army special forces, many of whom did not know what Mr. Woods was with them doing that to begin with. But, Tiger was driven to work out and train with them. This vital body part damage, to his knee, as well as the others that affected Tiger over the years, like from notable car accidents, may have been the most detrimental to his overall career and current state of not being able to be as he once was. Who knows?

    It has been established that had Tiger not been an amazing golfer, that he was fascinated and driven by Army elite performers. This is coming from interviews with him.

    Again, I am no expert on golf, nor men who are Black, nor this celebrity but I throw this out there to make us wonder how we are in 2024. And specifically, the first and still rare Black man who so affects the perception and history of this sport. Tiger has performed very poorly the third day of the Master's this month, a venue that he has owned as younger man, a generation ago. Injuries and age have caught up with him. His arms and physique look great, for being 49-years old. I am not sure about his brain and mental stamina, but maybe his legs and more reportedly his back ailments are the major impediments to him having success. But could the Army setback be the worst of it?

    Is this the curse of his life, the same military lifestyle that exposed him (perhaps) to this sport, gave him the desire or quest to be like the military elites that his dad knew while he was a child? And that isolated him from his own age peers, and kept him connected to these men who knew military lives? Did his dad's practice of driving Tiger on the courses and away from his peers turn Tiger into who he would become?

    I read that Tiger did not have many same-age peers as a child, but was better friends with his dad's adult military friends. Tiger was abnormal, which help him prepare for a life of lonely, austere, concentrated competition and skill. Those older men, among them his father, were his heroes and intimate partners. His dad's loss may have exacerbated the longing for Army guys, and his own quest to be a powerful soldier, hence leading him to work out with the Rangers or Green Berets and messing up a crucial part of his physical apparatus for life. Perhaps. 

    I do not have the answers. But some of these questions are worth pondering, and reflecting on, in my opinion. By the way, I would like Tiger to win another 4 grand slams to be the all-time champion in the sport. Many think that it will not happen. Blame it on the Army, maybe. Both credit and blame go to this institution, and the psychology of the super star who was in it at birth. As being of a certain age myself, born in the 1970s, I would like to see the old record fall. However, the military may be the ultimate thing that gave occasion to and reduced the chances for this outcome. 

    I could be way off. But maybe not.