An awakened Tiger.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

I've never cared for golf on the theory that it's not a sport. My personal belief is that if you can gain weight or smoke cigarettes while doing it, then that disqualifies it from being any sort of athletic contest.

Also, since I write about that messy place where sports and politics collide, the conservative plaid-pleated world of the PGA golf tour usually offers little material.

There were hopes when Tiger Woods burst onto the scene in 1997 that all this would change. His father, Earl, predicted that his son would "do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity." Others predicted a political dawn was coming to the country dub tour, with its antediluvian restrictions on people of color and women that remain at many venues.

But Tiger has spent the last fifteen years careening from dull to scandalous with little time to say a word about the historic racism that's defined the sport that's made him so wealthy.

Then at the end of May, Sergio Garcia opened his mouth.

At a European Tour players' dinner, Garcia, who is from Spain and often feuds with Woods, was asked jokingly whether he would be getting together socially with Tiger any time soon. Garcia, clearly doing his best Don Rickles, said, "We'll have him 'round every night. We will serve fried chicken."

In golf, and especially in relation to Tiger Woods, that phrase "fried chicken" is more incendiary than just any old ugly stereotype about African Americans. The idea of serving Tiger Woods "fried chicken" was infamously uttered when the then twenty-one-year-old Woods was just emerging back in 1997. It was seen, whether intentionally or not, as an effort by Fuzzy Zoeller to remind Woods to know his place. That was an ugly, divisive moment, which pains all concerned to recall. The idea that Garcia would revive it so blithely was simply salt on the wound.

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Garcia made an effort to quickly apologize, saying, "I answered a question that was clearly made towards me as a joke with a silly remark, but in no way was the comment meant in a racist manner."

Tiger Woods was quick to respond, saying, "The comment that was made wasn't silly. It was wrong, hurtful, and clearly...