Tiger Woods’ mother just died. Kultida Woods was 80. She was Thai making Tiger along with Kamala Harris and Marcus Freeman, Asian-Americans. She met Woods’ father Earl during the Viet Nam war. I had the pleasure of meeting her, talking with her and walking with her at a Masters.
When I was at Georgia and the Master’s golf tournament started, my friends would take off for Augusta. I stayed in Athens. I couldn’t go to Augusta because the only blacks allowed at the Masters’ were wearing white coats or meandering around with a mop or a broom. There were no black (or women) members and no black had ever played on the golf course – unless they sneaked on after hours.
The first black to play the Masters’ was Lee Elder in 1975. He missed the cut. I graduated from Georgia in 1966 to put some perspective on it. Elder was a trail blazer. He was the first black to become a PGA member in 1978. He lost in a playoff to Jack Nicklaus in one tournament. He, at the invitation of Gary Player, played in the South African PGA Championship. Mind you this was during white rule and apartheid. Nelson Mandela did not become South African president until 1994.
When Elder won a PGA tournament in 1974, he received an automatic invitation to play the Masters. Although Pete Brown and Charlie Sifford had won tournaments earlier, the Masters did not have automatic qualifying until after their prime. Likely this was intentional. Incidentally, Tiger Woods’ son is named Charlie after Sifford. So I was long gone from Georgia by the time Elder played. I was disappointed in his performance but elated that merit rather than color would be a deciding factor in the Masters choosing its participants.
Then came Tiger Woods. In 1995, apartheid had fallen and Nelson Mandela was president of South Africa and Woods played in his first Masters as an amateur. I had the luck and good fortune of being on Capitol Hill when Mandella first spoke to a joint session of Congress and was invited by the chairman of the Black Congressional Caucus to attend the speech. They sat me in the chairs leading up to the podium. President Mandela after he spoke then shook the hands of all those in those seats. I told him that I had just come back from bow hunting in the Limpopo province and he had a lovely country and a wonderful people. We talked for a few minutes before he was pulled away to go to more important events. My mother saw me on C-Span.
Woods won his first masters in 1997. When Woods had his sex scandal he dropped out of golf for a couple of years. When he came back it was at the Masters. At that time two young Georgia football players who were friends of my daughter her freshman and sophomore years had become the athletic director and associate AD at Georgia. The associate AD who is a dear friend, Arthur Johnson, knew I was at the family farm in Gray and called me saying “Do you want to join Damon (the AD) and me for the Masters’? I think I said “Hell yes!” “Well meet us at the Waffle House in Madison.” We arrived in Augusta and went to a reception at a large antebellum house and were taken by golf cart to the tournament. There we joined Tiger’s group of Phil Knight (Georgia is a Nike school), Tiger’s friends and his mother Kultida. I walked the 18 holes with the group and spent some time talking with his mother. She was charming and likely her son’s biggest fan. At the ninth hole, a reporter from the Golf Channel shoved a microphone in my face and asked how was Tiger doing? I said that his approach was impressive especially the fade that he put on the ball and if he could keep playing like that he should finish in the top 10. His mother said “I didn’t think you played?” I told her that I didn’t but as a professor I could sound knowledgeable even when I wasn’t. My mother saw me on the Golf Channel.
It is not surprising that Woods has withdrawn from an upcoming tournament. I am sure that his mother would have wanted him to play. But the loss of a mother is hard to process. I actually started to cry when a random memory of my mom came unbidden the other day. So let’s let Tiger grieve. RIP Mrs Woods.
haroldblackphd.com 