9 Fascinating Golf Stories of 2008 - #5: That Whole Lynching Thing
by Ryan Ballengee on Dec 30, 2008 3:12 PM EST
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PrintHere at Waggle Room, we're going to do the cliche thing around this time of year and do a countdown of the top such and suches of the year. For us, we're going to do the 9 golf stories from the year that fascinated us.
A whole series of events erupted from Kelly Tilghman's passive comment during a Golf Channel broadcast of the Mercedes Championship this past January. Tilghman, when talking with Nick Faldo about Tiger Woods' competition trying to gang up on him each season, said that they would want to "lynch Woods in a back alley."
The racial undertones of lynching made Kelly's imagery choice into the talk of the golf world for a good two weeks in January. Humor pieces came out about it. Race-based groups called for Kelly's head, including Al Sharpton. Someone eventually placed a symbolic noose at Kelly Tilghman's house. Many, including Tiger Woods, shot it down as nothing more than a slip of the tongue. Tim Finchem was not happy about the impact on the brand - and probably the duration of that 15 year deal with the Golf Channel.
In the end, Tilghman had to pay and went on a two week suspension for her comment and took two days to apologize for it publicly.
The real kicker in all of this came from the media's reaction to itself.
Craig Dolch and Jeff Rude led the brigade in the media asking everyone to back down since Tiger had made up with Kelly - a long-time media friend of his. Too bad that these were white guys defending another white person in a sport with a not-so-inclusionary history.
Several other journalists - not sports writers, and they probably didn't even see the clip - called for Kelly's head on a platter. They made comparisons to Don Imus' "nappy headed hoes" comment that got him fired. But they turned that on Tilghman, saying that Imus was paid to be controversial and she was/is not.
Then, Golfweek did its thing.
Then editor Dave Seanor's call to put the noose on the cover cost him his job. In the midst of the Jena 6 case and the racial epithets that had been conjured up during the controversy, Seanor made a bad call. Jeff Babineau was promoted to Seanor's old job.
The magazine cover was hypocritical to the calls from his own writers, particularly Jeff Rude, to drop the topic as no big deal. It was the biggest irony in a string of ironies - making controversy while telling people to drop another controversy.
The whole problem was the media covering itself. In a dying and more hypercompetitive industry (golf journalism), the drive to be edgy, or even relevant, made this topic one that gave the golf media a very bad name.
The golf community grew even smaller with the crippling of the golf beat writer at major newspapers. Now, many of the players that caused this mess still remain employed. Everyone is entitled to a mistake. But I cannot help to think that the golf journalist got a real bruising as a result of this controversy.
This situation also goes to show you that there really is cognitive dissonance and selectivity in picking what makes controversy. Writers largely ignored the folks at Sky Sports that talked about an Asian player's "Oriental Surprise," or that Johnny Miller said that Rocco Mediate looks like the guy that cleans Tiger's pool. It brings to the forefront that there is real inconsistency in much golf commentary and reporting.
It sure taught me some lessons in what not to do.
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only 2 interesting points on this whole mess...
1) the only person with reason to be mad was Tiger, and he forgave Tilghman.
2) the media didn’t care that the story was over – they were going to beat it to death and then kick it some more.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
So you read the article? :)
I would say that there is a real intriguing lesson on when someone gets a pass. Kelly got a pass from a LOT of people, particularly in the golf world. It was the media that never saw the clip, don’t know Kelly, or anything like that which made the firestorm.
Don't forget the other side of the coin...
…there is a huge double standard in language in race and gender. If you are white and male, you basically walk around with a target on your back – everybody can talk about you and you have to grin and bear it – but if you say or do anything, off with your head. White women get half a pass because NATURALLY, women would NEVER say anything bad about another human being – it’s just the mean ol’ nasty men.
The problem came in when people started pointing out the double standard and calling for Tilghman’s job – instead of asking the more reasonable question of whether all these other people who had a slip of the tongue should have lost their jobs and had their lives destroyed.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
whiny white guys
There’s no way you’d notice because you lack the perspective, but historically white males are the oppressors. Only in the last 50 years or so, since the beginning of the civil rights movement, have those who aren’t white and male said, “Enough!” Now when someone calls WMs on their BS, they get all whiny and stuff, talking about targets on their backs.
Kelly got the pass from the golf world because they know her. They know what she said was a poor choice of words, not deeply held racism. As I noted below, non-golf media jumped on the story because it was easy to create controversy for ad revenue generation.
Truth has a well-known liberal bias.
whatever
typical female response – it’s ok to scream “fairness” until it’s someone you don’t want to be fair to. :-) and the civil rights movement didn’t start in the last 50 years. check your history. republicans back in Abraham Lincoln’s day were pushing legislation for racial equality. oh yeah – you don’t like the “r” word – I forgot.
Tilghman got a pass because Tiger Woods stepped up. The media didn’t give her a pass until something else came along for them to salivate over.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
eyeball$
The media needs controversy to attract eyeballs. The more contentious a story, the more people will read, watch and listen to factual and fictional accounts, which generates advertising revenue. Media companies have a vested interest in making as big a deal as they can about nothing.
Tilghman shouldn’t have said what she did. I’m sitting here trying to think of more appropriate imagery to get her point across. Due to the history of white on black terrorism in this country, I don’t think there is a suitable image that uses violence. In any case, the media sensed dollars so it pounced like an investment banker on a pile of sub prime derivatives. It got its story, sold some papers and feels no remorse.
Truth has a well-known liberal bias.
I tried to click on the You Tube link...
but it said it was no longer available due to the Golf Channel copyrights. And there was actually a part of me that wasn’t sure I even wanted to watch it because the whole story makes me cringe. I agree with diane, Tilghman shouldn’t have said what she did. It was a mistake and she knew it – she apologized. What amazed me was again, taking intent (which I don’t think there was any malice intended) and turning it into soapbox issue that had nothing to do with the real incident.
The Golfweek cover was also an error in judgement, but I was shocked that the editor got fired.
Now that I think about it, I think all of the ropes should be removed from the Clue board game because it might reference someone being hanged. Intent vs. interpretation – we’ve seen that more than once this year.
you didn't miss anything...
…Tilghman is the worst host in the game. She is clearly overmatched by the presense of Faldo, and she just doesn’t do a good job. When this happened, she was trying to one-up Faldo in a conversation about beating Tiger Woods. She did a broad jump over the decency line and got caught. Tiger didn’t take it personally – but the media smelled blood and ran with it – which cost someone else a job at Golfweek when he ran even FURTHER over the line with the magazine cover.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
A lot more was made of this
Than there had to be because there was no malicious intent, I think. What Imus said had way more of that “malicious intent” behind it than what Kelly did. It still wasn’t right or appropriate at all.
by Ryan Ballengee on Dec 31, 2008 10:19 AM EST reply actions
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