Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

I write this before the final round of the Masters. Who knows what Tiger will do, though he is -- after all the sexual scandal and corporate ostracism -- in the running.

Back in 1997 I wrote a column about how blackfolks, especially those into the sport of golf, were so proud of Tiger Woods at Augusta National. People who didn't care about or know anything about golf were excited. That included me.

But swept up in the historic nature of what was happening in a game and at a place that had deliberately excluded blacks who were not servants, I paid attention. And I reached out to some veteran golfers among blackfolks I knew. One was Nezelle Bradshaw, a woman who had been in the game on black circuits since 1949 or 1950 and who could tell me stories of some of the storied black players like Teddy Rhodes and Charlie Sifford.

On that Masters Sunday in 1997 as the final round was underway, she said of Tiger: "He is just head and shoulders above all the other people. He has confidence. He has skills. And he has ice water flowing through his veins." After he won, she told me: "This man has done something incredible."

Some polls say that men are more forgiving of Tiger than women. Not the case with the women I know, including some like Mrs. Bradshaw, who turns 92 next month. "He's a good athlete, an excellent golfer -- and what he did is what most men have done in their lifetime....It's no big deal because most men do it. It's not right, but we have to be realistic in this world."

My 82-year-old mama, considered Mother Shipp at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Conyers, Ga., said: "I think he's doing what he's supposed to do: winning the game. I hope he gets his life straightened out with his family."

OK. So I talked to my younger sister, Norma, who has a doctorate in theology and has played golf. "I'm still happy about his accomplishments, but I'm disappointed in his personal behavior. He needs to get his personal life together because he has a lot of people looking up to him." So I put this question to her: If he were her man, would she take him back? "HELL NO! No money in the world would make me want to stay with someone who betrayed me that way with that many indiscretions."

A male cab driver I spoke with earlier today said the worst thing for Tiger would be for him to actually win the Masters because that would contribute to his sense of invincibility not just in golf but in life.

The television ratings are up. The Professional Golf Association -- and the golfers on the tour -- are making money because Tiger is back, burning bright as the British poet William Blake wrote in the 1800s.