Eric McErlain has a fun and pretty comprehensive sports blog over at Off-Wing. Today, McErlain criticizes Tiger Woods for not coming out against sex-exclusive golf clubs. There are lots of issues at play here, but first let me quote McErlain’s post:

If You’re Tiger Woods. . . Your career has been one with few missteps. From your quiet development as a young golfer (save for one appearance on Merv Griffin), to a short but brilliant amateur career at Stanford, through to a meticulously planned pro debut (complete with ready-made endorsements), everything has gone just right. Even when you have stumbled, (a memorable GQ interview when Tiger let loose with some off-color jokes) the media gave you a free pass while it let Fuzzy Zoeller twist in the wind.

But during a press conference at Muirfield before this weekend’s British Open, Tiger made another misstep as chronicled by the New York Post:

Tiger Woods, who champions himself as a man vehemently against exclusionary policies for reasons of race or anything else, should be ashamed at the gutless straddle-the-fence answer he delivered yesterday to a question about women not being allowed as members of Augusta National.

“[Augusta National is] entitled to set up their own rules the way they want them,” said Woods, whose early existence in golf was all about opening doors to those like himself who were excluded because of prejudice, emphasized by his first Nike TV commercial that blared against his exclusion from certain golf clubs because of the color of his skin.

“That’s the way they want to set it up,” Woods said. “It’s their prerogative to set it up that way. It would be nice to see everyone have an equal chance to participate if they wanted to, but there is nothing you can do about it. . . . It’s just the way it is.”

Huh? I watched the videotape of this press conference last night, and I have to say I was surprised at how awkward the usually poised Woods seemed to be. But wait, it gets better:

Woods, who is of African-American and Asian descent, was asked if he feels the same way if this discrimination of women also applies to African-Americans and Asians.

“Yes I do,” he said.

Which simply left me speechless. As we all recall, Woods’ introduction to the world included a series of commercials where he talked about golf courses where he couldn’t play because of his race. Now he tells us that was no big deal? Since when is he channeling the spirit of George Wallace?

Let’s break this down a bit.

Tiger’s Hypocrisy
This I think is the strongest criticism coming from Tiger-bashers. The Nike commercials he shot referencing segregated courses make it awfully difficult for him to take the position he has (which really isn’t a position at all — it’s more of an indifference). It’s tough to defend a guy who’s willing to make money exploiting race issues, but will then abandon them when it better suits his interests. Much as I like Tiger, I think the criticism of him here is valid.

Consumer Activism and Discrimination at the Country Club
That said, I think Tiger is in some ways correct. Private clubs should be permitted to set membership policies as they please. But when I write “as they please,” I mean only that I oppose state-forced integration. That by no means suggests that I don’t find race-exclusive clubs repugnant. I also think that consumer activism is a very valuable and necessary means of holding private firms accountable. Free-marketeers often mock consumer activists — the anti-sweatshop movement, for example. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with or particularly anti-market about holding corporations publicly accountable for the way they treat their workers. Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with holding private clubs responsible for membership policies decent people find deplorable. Granted, activists usually cross the line into calling for state interference — and at that point they lose me — but merely calling attention to untoward practices is, I think, a valuable contribution to the market process.

So Tiger is right to say that private clubs should be free to set their own membership policies. But to suggest that there’s “nothing he can do about it” is a little tough to stomach. Surely if the world’s greatest golfer — probably the greatest golfer in the history of the world — were to take a position, heads would turn, pens would scribble and, I’d guess, policies might evolve.

I’ve written in the past that I admire Tiger for his lack of activism. And I still do. That he’s refused to become a tool for “progressive” causes is commendable. But it’s more than a little disconcerting to see a guy play the segregation card when it benefits him, but then to duck it once he feels a little heat.

Sex vs. Race
One more caveat. Personally, I’m fine with gender exclusive golf clubs. And rotary clubs. And Kiwanis clubs. Maybe it’s because I’m a pig. But the idea of a group of guys setting up a course to escape the old lady for a few hours — or a group of ladies setting up a place to escape the old man for a few hours — doesn’t bother me in the least. There’s a huge difference I think between race discrimination and sex discrimination when it comes to how we socialize. I think we men still need a place where we can gather, tell dirty jokes, scratch ourselves and complain about the Missus. Throw women into the mix and we have to start cleaning up our language, holding in our gas, and we can’t walk around the club pantsless anymore. No, I don’t think the men at Augusta do any of these things. But on principle, I’m uncomfortable setting the precedent that gender-exclusive socializing is in itself something we should be “fighting.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 19th, 2002 at 7:52 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.