In Tiger Woods’ forgivable mistake, there’s still a telling message

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Completely unintentionally, the Genesis Invitational has become an annual exercise in messaging. Last year, we listened as every top player defended the PGA Tour as the best place to play pro golf. This year: Netflix is bringing golf to the widest audience in the world. Also this year: Men in golf make gendered jokes. The last two are bound to intersect.

Plenty of milk has already been spilled over Tiger Woods’ tampon joke he made with Justin Thomas on Thursday afternoon. Plenty of people will try to clean it up by shouting It’s just a joke! That’s well within their rights. But in general, it’s not very fair (or kind!) to tell people why they shouldn’t be offended by something. If they feel that way, there’s often a reason buried within the original messaging. And the truth is, no one knows messaging like Tiger Woods.

There’s intentional meaning in some of his actions — like speaking out against LIV Golf — and unspoken truths in others — declaring St. Andrews his favorite course in the world. (He likes the firm turf of Scotland more than the perfect green grass fairways of Augusta National.) He sends us a silent message when he tears up during his Hall of Fame induction. And when he gives Thomas that clever grin after making three birdies in a row. Intentional or not, he sends a message via the pranks he makes during his first competitive PGA Tour round in seven months. He didn’t mean for everyone to see it, but he had to know we were all looking. 

As the host of the tournament and most famous golfer who ever lived, Woods knows every step he takes on-site will be seen, especially considering how fragile his every step looks. Every smile will be captured. Every grimace will be talked about. This is a standard different than every other golfer who ever lived, and it might not be fair, but he knows it’s the truth. And knowing all that, Woods went through with it. We don’t have to watch the video frame-by-frame to figure out what it tells us: These are the jokes he makes at Medalist, too. But the setting matters, here in his first competitive event in seven months. The first tweet with high-resolution photos has been viewed more than 24 million times. 

“It was supposed to be all fun and games, and obviously it hasn’t turned out that way,” Woods said Friday after his second round. “If I offended anybody, it was not the case. It was just friends having fun. 

“As I said, if I offended anybody in any way, shape or form, I’m sorry. It was not intended to be that way. It was just, we play pranks on one another all the time, and virally I think this did not come across that way, but between us it was — it’s different.”

Woods was prepared to deliver an apology, but he didn’t explain why that is his version of “friends having fun.” He may not have meant what everyone’s first perception was, but he didn’t dive into his intended meaning, either. Most everyone can understand the people we are behind closed doors often differ from the people we present in public. But akin to when Thomas used a gay slur during a round years ago, Woods doing something like this during competition — which PGA Tour players hold about as seriously as funerals — simply shows that silly, crass jokes are part of his lexicon. That isn’t surprising and it doesn’t make Woods unique, but it’s still important. Woods is the greatest influencer golf has ever known. His jokes are just jokes — this wasn’t a press release, and no, comedy isn’t dead — but how and when he tells them still matters.

Using a female hygiene product as your choice prop for a golf joke is going to send some sort of message to female golfers. The intention leaves Woods’ control at that point. However female golfers perceive it is up to them. But for the host of the tournament playing the most widely viewed rounds of the year to this point, the timing is as much a misstep as the prop itself. Amid it all, Woods made the cut on the number and earned himself two weekend rounds, an important step for his golf season. That might be it for pranks, though.

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