The Tiger Woods Effect

It becomes easier to accept a black President after having learned to accept a black athlete as the greatest golfer in the world.

There has been a sea change in American racism over the last dozen years. A black athlete as the greatest in the most conservative of sports has helped for many with little experience with race.

Tiger Woods is the son of an African-American father and a Thai mother. Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

Golf, like politics, has always been a very traditional game. Change is not something golfers go for unless it is a tax cut. At the professional level there is no sport with more Republicans and conservatives as participants.

Prior to the arrival of Tiger, most professional golfers only experience with people of color was as caddies or servants at their country clubs.

Golf itself has a very shameful past. The PGA Tour still had a Caucasian-only clause 14 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.

In 1961 they were forced to finally drop the Caucasian-only clause by California Attorney General Stanley Mosk who refused to let them play on California golf courses if they didn’t change their rules.

Even the dropping of the clause didn’t lead to sudden integration in golf.

Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament didn’t have a black competitor until 1975. One of the founders of the Georgia club, Cliff Roberts, famously said, “as long as I’m alive, golfers will be white, and caddies will be black.”

I started a Web site dedicated to golf in 1993. This was the very beginning of the Internet Age, with no more than a couple hundred Web sites, and most of those .gov or .edu sites.

We didn’t have a lot of money and didn’t have anything to spare for travel to golf events. Most of our coverage of golf tournaments was wire service stories.

Less than a year after our start the new U.S. Amateur Champion, a skinny 18-year-old kid from Southern California started playing for Stanford University, 20 miles north of our world headquarters.

We covered the heck out of this young kid. I really enjoyed covering Tiger. He was my son’s age and was fun to talk to before fame made him more careful. He could also make some amazing shots.

We continued to cover Tiger through his two years at Stanford, his two more U.S. Amateur Championships, his turning pro in 1996 and Tigermania in the winter of 1996-1997.

Not everyone liked that we covered Woods.

We’d often get very angry, racists letters complaining about our coverage. Some were not the least embarrassed by their racism and made it clear that was their complaint. Others complained about his youth or arrogance, or his daring to take titles away from Phil Mickelson and other white golfers.

The racists were fighting a losing battle with Tiger. His talent was always his answer to his critics.

Golf is a meritocracy. It is golfer versus the golf course. No teammates. No coaches. No technology advantages. Shoot the lowest score shows you are better than your competition.

Tiger was clearly better.

Tiger winning the 1997 Masters Tournament, playing it for the first time as a professional, drove racists crazy. By 2000 it had to become obvious to them they had lost the war. Tiger was much better than all of his competition. The argument was no longer if he was the best golfer, but was he the best of all time?

Tiger has been out of action since winning the U.S. Open in the summer, recovering from surgery. He has not been on the stage. He hasn’t said either way who he supported or voted for in the 2008 Presidential campaign. Tiger does not speak out on political issues.

It is more than possible the richest athlete in the world would have joined most other professional golfers and supported John McCain.

Sportswriter Jamie Diaz wrote, “Golf is a sport that requires judgment, intelligence, emotional control, focus, organization, integrity,” all abilities that would also serve a president of the United States.


Most agree there is a clear line from Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. That doesn’t mean the civil rights movement wouldn’t have happened without Robinson. He gave it a boost.

Obamamania might have happened in 2008 without the Tigermania of the previous decade, but he also gave Barack Obama a boost. He helped to make it possible for many conservatives to accept the idea of exceptionalism in people of color.

When Tiger was just starting out his career, Earl Wood said about his son, "Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity. He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power."

When Earl said that about his son’s potential impact on the world it sounded like a father getting carried away by his son’s abilities.

It is starting to sound a little less bombastic now.

Note: After I wrote this column, Tiger Woods announced, "I think it's [Obama' election] absolutely incredible. He represents America. He's multiracial. I was hoping it would happen in my lifetime. My father was hoping it would happen in his lifetime, but he didn't get to see it. I'm lucky enough to have seen a person of color in the White House."

Think I’ll have another beer

“Bart, a woman is like beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one!”
--Homer Simpson

Hoppy Brewpub was the place to be early on election night. It should be easy to get a table for seven on a Tuesday night at 6 pm. Little did we know the world would show up at Hoppy.

Sacramento is a beer and a burger kind of town, but there aren’t as many microbreweries as other cities of its size. Perhaps the town is more of a Bud and a Big Mac than a dark porter with a Kobe burger town.

While Hoppy beer started brewing over 15 years ago, the brewpub in Sacramento opened at its present location on Folsom near 65th Street in the summer of 1999.

Tuesday night was a rough night for Hoppy Brewpub. Service was a step under mediocre, while the food would have to be greatly improved to get the badge of mediocrity. The good news is the beer. Between the Burnt Sienna Ale and the Total Eclipse Black Ale, one was just okay, but the other was excellent.

The joint was crowded, and our group waited about 20 minutes for a table, a rarity early on a Tuesday night. When we sat down we found out why from our server, with anyone saying they had voted that date getting a free pint. The brewpub should have been ready for the onslaught, having promoted the offer.

Eventually we got our first pints, but that was all we got. No rolls, sourdough or even crackers set on the table. This became especially uncomfortable, as some of our dinners came with soup or salads, some didn’t. It’s never comfortable to be the one or two eating prior to everyone else in the group.

The Burnt Sienna Ale was picked as the free pint. It was a good, but not nearly a great brown ale. Delivered slightly colder than recommended, but that is typical of American brewpubs were Americans expect their beers colder than they should be.

The brown ale (free on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November) was less hoppy than expected, more of an English brown ale than the preferred Scottish browns. It had none of the distinctive freshness expected of a microbrew.

The second brewsky was the highlight of the evening. The Total Eclipse Black Ale ($5.00 pints, $18.00 pitcher) is the type of stuff you would step over your own mother just to get one. Hoppy Black Ale is a stout brew, delivered slightly warm, with the perfect color and head. The slight coffee flavor was perfect with such a robust beer.

Since Hoppy is a brewpub we had to order some food to go with our beer, especially due to a complete lack of any sort of munchies on the table.

Three Brothers is a trio of sausages with sauerkraut and roasted red potatoes ($11.85).

The sauerkraut tasted like dried out Del Monte. It had no flavor, more similar to overcooked angel hair pasta than true sauerkraut. The red potatoes were just a couple boiled potatoes, quartered, with no seasoning.

It’s tough to turn down anything with andoulee sausage. When andoulee is good it is the sausage from heaven. When it is bad, it is Oscar Meyer.

Hoppy was Oscar Meyer.

And the bratwurst and chicken apple sausages weren’t much better. These three brothers had too similar of DNA to show off much difference. Even the brat and the andoulee were not that easy to tell apart, a cardinal sin of specialty sausages. The chicken apple was distinct, but hardly memorable.

And what is the point of sausages without specialized mustard? A really good sausage doesn’t need great mustards, but mediocre sausage does. Hoppy sausages needed great mustards.

Three Brothers came with soup or salad. The cæsar salad wasn’t anything Caesar Cardini would recognize, but it’s tough to find a cæsar salad he would approve of anywhere.

The rest of the table seemed happy with their selections. A couple of the salads looked very good, and the sandwiches and burgers looked like reasonable choices.

The desert menu might have been tempting had the second pint not gone down so easily. The Chocolate Wall ($5.25) and the Carmel Apple Granny ($3.95) might be worth a spin on the next visit.

The atmosphere was typical brewpub. High ceilings and bunched tables made the room much noisier, making it difficult to hear conversation for a table of seven. They had a single large screen television with a local station giving election returns. Had it been a slower evening we might have asked the server to turn to CNN to watch their new holographic interviews.

Hoppy deserves another chance. They were busier than usual because of the free pint promotion, and it looked like on a nice quite evening service would be much more helpful with beer and menu selection.

If for no other reason than the Total Eclipse Black Ale, this reporter will be giving Hoppy at least one more chance.

Hoppy is at 6300 Folsom Blvd, Sacramento 95819. (916) 451-HOPPY. Map

Chickens Home to Roost

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was right about the possibility of the chickens coming home to roost; he was just early in his prediction.

Republicans have controlled the federal government most of the last eight years and the country largely blames them for the mess we currently are in. They will be trying to hold some positions this election, but are sure to have less power after Nov. 4.

The 2008 election has lost some of its excitement at the top of the ticket, with just about everyone not named Sarah Palin knowing the election is already over.

There are still critical issues to watch with the Democrats looking for a filibuster proof Senate and other critical votes across the country.

The U.S. Senate currently has 49 Republican and 49 Democratic Senators, with Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, VT. and Independent Joe Lieberman, CT, caucusing with the Democrats.

There are 35 seats up for vote this Nov. 4 (33 up for terms expired, two up in special elections.) A total of 23 of these seats are currently held by Republicans, 12 by Democrats.


Should the Democrats get up to 60 Senators they will be able to control the Senate, giving them enough to override any potential filibuster. The minority Republicans will have little reason to show up in the Senate.

A strong opposition, regardless if it is Republican or Democratic, is important in our government and could be sorely missed should the Democratic Party realize the gain of nine more seats.

According to the some of the latest polling, there are six states considered potential tossups: Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi (the second seat), New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon.

If you count Sanders and Lieberman as Democrats, and concede the Democrats winning new seats in Virginia, Alaska, Colorado and New Mexico, then the Democrats would need five of the six tossups to get to 60 Senators.

One critical race to watch is North Carolina, where Lizzie Dole is running for reelection, but most polls have her behind Democratic challenger Kay Hagen.

Dole, who was once talked about as potentially the first female President, has gone beyond the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove stlye, calling her Sunday-school teaching opponent “godless” and using a female voice to leave the impression it is her opponent saying “there is no god.”



Minnesota is another race that is much closer now than it was a few weeks ago.

Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is facing a tough challenge from former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken. Coleman looked like the clear favorite until the economy collapsed.

It looks like Coleman is the best Republican hopes amongst the tossups, but you never know in Minnesota, which elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura governor less than 10 years ago.

Another interesting race on Nov. 4 is the Senatorial race in Alaska. Sen. Ted Stevens was found guilty at the end of October of seven counts of failing to report gifts. Since then he has refused to withdraw from the race and challenger Mark Begich has taken a small lead in the polls.

Should Stevens win he would probably remain in the Senate while his case is appealed. Should he fail on appeal, he could be booted out of the Senate, and the governor of Alaska would appoint an interim Senator until a special election could be held.

Gov. Sarah Palin could appoint herself to the seat to keep in the national spotlight until 2012 or 2016. It would be a gamble, since if she would then lose the special election she would be jobless.

All of the 435 House of Representative seats are up for re-election, with Democrats, who already control the House, playing offense and Republicans playing defense.

Locally we have a couple interesting races with Dan Lungren (R) facing off against Bill Durston (D) and Charlie Brown (D) and Tom McClintock (R) fighting for John Doolittle’s seat.

One congressional seat this reporter will be watching is a Congressional race is Minnesota.

Incumbent Republican Michele Bachmann is in her first term representing Minnesota’s 6th district. On MSNBC Bachmann recently claimed Barrack Obama “may have anti-American ideas,” and the media should look into her fellow congress people to see who else might have un-American ideas.



Bachmann was the clear favorite prior to her call for renewed McCarthyism. Her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg raised $1.8 million since her appearance and has moved the race toward a tossup.

The final race to watch this Tuesday is the California vote on Proposition 8, the initiative to change the California Constitution to eliminate same-sex marriage. For most of the campaign cycle this looked as if it was going down to defeat, but a late influx of cash has resulted in only a slight edge to No on Prop.8 side.

Both sides are well aware of the old quote, “as goes California so goes the nation.” Should Prop. 8 fail the gay rights movement will move out from California. If Prop. 8 passes it will set back the gay-rights movements a couple years.

After Nov. 4 the Democratic Party will be taking control of both the executive and legislative branch of the government. If the Democrats aren’t careful it could result in a future blowback much like the Republicans are facing this fall.