When Tiger Woods won the Masters last weekend, it was a moment many thought would never happen.
Woods has been one of the most important figures in modern sports because of the way he rocketed into golf and exemplified excellence. He is second all-time on the list of wins (81) and majors (15), and reintroduced a generation to a tradition like no other.
It was hard to think a time could come when he would be irrelevant.
Until the moment he was.
You dont need to be a fan of an athlete to be disappointed by him. And Tiger didnt simply disappoint he disappeared. Woods infidelity on an epic scale was paired with a precipitous decline due to a cascade of injuries. For a time, Woods career paralleled those of Serena and Venus Williams in tennis, each breaking new ground in their respective sports through the combination of towering accomplishment and simply showing up. Then Tiger went away, and with him, much of the influence he brought.
In the years since the Williams sisters started playing, more and more young women of color picked up a racket. If you look across the WTA landscape you can see the full-grown results of a real push to open tennis up to young players of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. American tennis now has players like Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys and Taylor Townsend in the top 100 in the world.
When we look at golf, the sport hasnt done as well with introducing the sport to new players although you cant exactly pin it all on Woods. The Masters was entrenched in an anti-inclusivity stance until 2012 when two women, Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, were named members. Many private clubs remain expensive and exclusive, and public courses can be scarce in different regions. Eight months ago, then PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua said diversity was the top issue facing the sport.
The biggest challenge is, I think, the challenge that everyone in golf shares, which is how do you grow this game? said Bevacqua. How do you make this game more accessible and more diverse?
Bevacqua said this two decades after the emergence of one of the greatest athletes in his game, the son of a black man and a Thai woman.
To address the inequity, the PGA, LPGA and other groups started the First Tee program to create a path for kids who didnt historically have access to the sport, but the results havent been as robust as hoped.
How much of that could Tiger Woods personally change?
Its hard to know. In a video that circulated widely after Woods win Sunday, a 14-year-old Tiger is asked what his ultimate ambition is in the sport, the one tournament he wants to win. The Masters, he says. Why? The way blacks have been treated there. You know, they shouldnt be there. If I win that tournament, itll be really big for us.
Woods became an icon, but before he could leverage his platform as Venus did, for example by advocating for equal pay at Wimbledon in a 2006 opinion piece in the Times of London, he was absorbed by the chaos hed created in his private life.
With his reputation in tatters, his ability to inspire change became just another in a cascade of what ifs. If he could have made more of a difference, he robbed himself of the best years to do it. The biggest casualty of his 11-year title drought might not have been the majors and titles, but also the moral authority to advocate for inclusion in golf.
There was a time when I didnt care if Tiger Woods ever won another round of golf.
But the 11 years since Woods won his last major title havent just weathered the former champion, we as a culture have examined what we are really looking for in our heroes. Woods didnt cheat at his sport or physically harm anyone. After years watching violent players recycled by leagues, time has changed my perception of what is unforgivable.
Last Saturday, Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman sealed a win with nary a mention of a domestic violence incident in which he allegedly fired a gun. Kansas City running back Kareem Hunt will play on after an eight-game suspension for kicking a woman in a violent incident caught on video. The list goes on.
