'I Stopped Using Tiger Woods As a Moral Compass In 2009'

Oh Tiger, the greatest sportsman to grace the planet at the age of 47 still has the sense of humour of a 14-year-old boy, who knew. Watching the discourse online has been truly fascinating, the people who appear to be the most outraged by the incident are the people defending how funny the joke is and if you don’t get it, you are a woke snowflake! *RAGE* They fail to see the irony of how upset they are by people with opinions different to theirs. 

So, what exactly is the joke? Tiger Woods outdrove Justin Thomas on the 9th hole and to celebrate this fact he tried to and failed to discreetly hand a tampon to Justin because Justin was weaker than he was, tampon = woman, woman = insult. 

‘’You hit like a girl’’ ‘’You throw like a girl’’ are common insults boys throw at each other as a way of calling each other inferior because like a girl/woman = less than.

Do I think Tiger Woods thought about any of the ramifications his actions may have?Absolutely not, in fact I’d say my days of looking to Tiger Woods as a moral compass on any issue ended quite abruptly in 2009. Because ultimately, he’s just a man that is extraordinarily gifted at hitting a small ball into a hole and not a deep, philosophical thinker on the impact sexism and gender biases have on the way men’s and women’s sports are viewed by the world.

I think he was giggling to himself while packing his special joke tampon into his golf bag and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to hand it to Justin. His intent was to have a laugh with his close friend on the course. But…he is Tiger Woods, and the eyes of the world are always on him, so it was a very poor choice of joke, because although his intent was to innocently poke fun at his friend the impact is that Tiger perpetuates misogynistic stereotypes for fun which is never a good look.

Many online comments have also been quick to ask how would Tiger Woods‘ 15-year-old daughter Sam may feel about the joke, did he not think about that? Again, I don’t think Tiger thought any further than congratulating himself on how funny he is. I also never understand the need to ask men to think of their daughters or wives when these types of scenarios come up, as if women weren’t people with thoughts and feeling before they actually had women close them in their own lives.

So, did I find the joke funny? No, not really but I wasn’t outraged either. When I heard I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Humour is subjective and different people find different things funny. I am not in any denial that professional male golfers outdrive female professional golfers, what I’m not a fan of though is one of the biggest role models in sport using women as punchline.