Quote from Mike805:
Ok, I think we can discuss this qualitatively. For the sake of discussion, let's assume some things about the act of playing golf; as Ricter menitoned, there are plenty of statistics, but lets just go with some common sense assessments.
1. Golf is an expensive sport. Clubs, green fees, travel etc.
Fact: A junior membership to just about any public/municipal course would run you anywhere from $50-$200 for an entire summer of unlimited play
2. Courses in impoverished areas are nearly non-existent as playing is somewhat of a luxury.
Fact: Ever heard of "Muni's"? Park district courses abound in just about every major metropolitan city. This is simply a myth that there are no affordable courses to be had. Granted, they may not have perfect bent grass greens and fairways, but they are fine for junior golfers.
3. Even in the 90's, several courses/clubs discriminated against minorities.
Yes they did. Shoal Creek was one of them. But when taken in the larger context of the ten's of thousands of courses in the United States, we are talking about a few private clubs. Of all the tournaments Tiger Woods entered, it was memorably because he was a prominent golfer on a Top 10 collegiate team and it drew national headlines
If you disagree with any of the above let's hear it, otherwise, lets take those statements at face value.
So lets when you say "traditionally white sport"; I would add "traditionally affluent white sport". The fact is, Tiger's father was a good golfer himself. A single handicapper by many accounts. They lived in orange county; a genrally affluent area with lots of courses with year round access.
Another myth. Go thru the list of the Top 50 ranked golfers in the World. Stick with those born in the United States for the sake of simplicity. Now, go ahead and do some due diligence on their backgrounds, where they played golf, what their parent's did for a living. I think you will realize that your entire argument stands on a pedestal borne of this "myth" that all golfers play out of some priviledged country club with rich parents. The MAJORITY of PGA Tour players DID NOT come from wealthy families.
So let's go back to some of the factors that made Tiger's rise possible:
1. Family (father's influence).
2. Money (enough to play lots of golf).
3. Geography (not an urban ghetto).
4. Time in history (ok, so the 90's weren't that discriminatory, but it existed).
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/18/s...tour-event-instead-of-changing-its-rules.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-06-22/sports/sp-236_1_shoal-creek
Tiger had no control over 1,2,3 and 4 above. These were purely a result of the womb he came out of and when. Can we agree on this?
I can agree that Tiger was very fortunate to be born to an ex-Green Beret military father who obviously loved his child, nurtured him and was an absolute genious in determining how best to balance Tiger Wood's development without driving him into a hatred for the game (see Todd Marinovich).
The problem I still have with this entire debate is that I'm missing this whole "infrastructure" argument. His father wasn't on welfare; Tiger didn't get "free golf", etc, etc...
) but it sounded like he was talking about the roads and bridges as far as the building part of the quote.