Tiger Woods, 47, is the father of a teenage sports-playing daughter. He was photographed giving Justin Thomas a tampon on Thursday, after Woods beat him in the first round at a PGA Tour event. This was a reversal of an old joke that schoolboys used to believe was funny.
It’s amazing that I wrote this sentence in 2023.
Thomas received the obvious message from Woods. For generations, it has been the preferred line of stupid and insecure boys:
You play like a girl.
Really, Tiger?
It was a strange thing for a father to do. Sam, his daughter now 15, was a soccer player growing up and arrived in Florida to see him win the Masters 2019.
My guess is that most of the millions upon millions of mothers and fathers who support their daughters’ athletic abilities have probably retired any juvenile pranks intended to degrade the capabilities of the girls they love and cheer for.
Not for our Tiger.
He used basic misogyny as an insult to Thomas, his good friend.
I’m curious. Is it just Woods or do all male golfers bring tampons to the course? It’s something that we know, but it might also be a male thing. Who would have thought? Tiger, the trendsetter.
Tiger Woods takes his shot on the fairway of the first hole during The Genesis Invitational tournament. (Photo by Gary A. Vasquez – USA TODAY Sports
Do you think Tiger purchases his own tampons, or does he have a supplier? Is there a supplier or a woman who he knows that gets him the tampons? Is he stealing them from the women’s locker rooms at country clubs, when no one is watching?
This is not the most important issue in sports right now, but it plays into a long-standing narrative that leaders of golf are trying to change.
The game of golf is only for men, and that includes grown men who act as teenagers.
Golf actively discouraged women from playing the game for generations. It made one of the most outrageous business decisions that any sport has ever made. Golf’s greatest capitalists, the powers that be, chose sexism to capitalism.
There are still some private clubs that women can’t join in the country. The big one fell in 2012 when Augusta National (the very visible home for the Masters) realized it had to do something in order to attract golfers even a fraction of the millions who have grown up playing sport due to Title IX.
These women are able to play golf well because they have the income and natural ability. However, they also enjoy other sports in great numbers, such as running marathons and playing in after-work soccer, volleyball and softball leagues, and doing yoga and Peloton, among many other activities. My father taught me how to play golf, and I have very few female friends who can.
Is it possible that a young woman who isn’t a college athlete will not try golf after hearing about Tiger’s tampon trick? This notion may seem extreme but it could be true. When Tiger the Tiger giddily spreads misogyny down a fairway, it might confirm a woman’s suspicions about golf. It might also send her to any of the scores other sports she can enjoy for the rest her life, without having to run into a guy playing a juvenile tampon joke.
Inquiring about Tiger’s activities, I sent Mark Steinberg a text on Thursday night.
“Can you confirm that Tiger gave Justin Thomas an ointment when he outdroved him today?” Check out the video below.
I also included a tweet and a few photos from the incident.
“Hardly the most important issue on Earth,” I said, “but it is getting a lot attention on social media tonight and it’s my goal to fix it.”
“If he did, then why did Tiger do that?” Please, tell me that it isn’t because Justin wants to convey the message that Justin was a girl. Tiger is Tiger okay with sending this message to women and girls in 2023?
“I was in high school with boys who did these kinds of things between 35-40 years ago. Why did Tiger do this today? Thanks.”
Steinberg never replied.
