Tiger Woods’ sexist stunt unacceptable despite media soft touch

Tiger Woods has been branded as ‘not a leader’ by legends after his latest sexist prank was caught out on live television.

Tiger Woods' tampon prank with Justin Thomas.

Seriously, in the history of televised sports do you think there has been anyone who has had more know-better lies — and of all sizes — told on his behalf than Tiger Woods?

Almost everyone who plays golf carries a Jerkometer, a mental device that gauges compatibility with those in your group and measures whether you’d play with them again based on enjoying one another’s company more than ability.

Most golfers, I’ve found, are good folks. The sport feeds that.

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For example, if I’m riding with a fellow who suddenly spies the cart girl and he says “Let me buy you a cold one,” chances are I’ve scored a mensch. Good for me, and, perhaps, us.

But if the guy in the cart with me tells me his fantasies about the cart girl, I know I’ve landed a jerk, a one-and-doner. We used to play with a guy we cruelly nicknamed, “Once,” as in all that’s we could take.

When I began to play golf, 40 years ago, a consistent “tell” came after someone left a putt short then issued the anguished semi-standard, “Hit it, Alice!” to deride himself for not being “manly” enough to have hit that putt harder, thus he was no better than an, ugh, woman.

I cringed at that expression. Still do. It’s cheap, childish, not clever, tired and bigoted. It’s Jerkometer-rated.

So then what kind of guy would a 47-year-old be if he made sure to bring with him to the golf course a tampon to play a joke on a buddy?

Tiger’s tampon prank has been brutally savaged by critics. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

That brings us to 47-year-old Tiger Woods, who last week determined that before he played off the first tee of a nationally televised PGA tournament he’d pack a tampon to bust the chops of playing partner Justin Thomas when Woods outdrove him, handing him the tampon for emulating a woman in the throes of her menstrual cycle.

Funny stuff, eh?

But we know by now — and since Woods was 16 and despite gobs of evidence to the contrary — that he’s the finest human on the planet, even if his tampon gag created reasonable disgust in reasonable, well-comported men and women who further suspected he’s only Top 5 on the planet.

And so another Tiger transgression — not a big one, not by far — but another one washed away as it doesn’t rhyme with the story TV has written for him and recites every time he plays on TV.

Naturally, Woods, lucky on at least two occasions not to have committed vehicular homicide — a verboten topic on TV last weekend as per usual — was granted self-entitlement as he was by California police crash investigators and those assigned to enforce The Rules of Golf.

So he was able to beat this rap with the modern contingency apology indicating that you’ve got the problem, not him:

Tiger returned to play at the Genesis Invitational. Harry How/Getty Images/AFP

“If I offended anybody in any way, shape or form, I’m sorry. It was not intended to be that way. It was just we play pranks on one another all the time and vitally I think this did not come across that way, but between us it was — it’s different.”

Thus the chance for 47-year-old Tiger Woods to say, “That was stupid. It’s not even funny, and I took an ugly and cheap shot at women. And to think I have a 15-year-old daughter. I am unconditionally sorry” was lost by Woods in pro forma self-service to Woods.

But what else is new? The media remain totally disinclined to paint a marginally accurate picture of Woods & Co. The man TV golf broadcasters have, since 1996, claimed is pure class, has always coasted on fabrications.

Interesting, though, is that last week a fellow world-class athlete, U.S. Olympic sprint champ Michael Johnson, nailed Woods with truths the media sprint from:

“An apology starting with ‘If I offended anyone’ is no apology. But this is Tiger. Never been a leader and he’s Teflon. Still heralded after all the mistakes so he’s learned nothing. Media focus always on miraculous recovery. Never why the need for recovery.”

And then it was back to the televised worship services, even if Saint Tiger of the Woods just may be something of a jerk.

This article was originally published in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Tiger Woods’ sexist stunt unacceptable despite media soft touch