Forget the Par 3. To insiders, Wednesday is Media Day at the Masters. It’s when the golf writers use the Masters Interview room to conduct their annual meeting, when the club gives these achievement awards, and when the writers honor themselves and players at the annual Golf Writers Association of America dinner. Cozy.
One of the players receiving an award tonight is Tiger Woods, a player with whom the media has a similarly complex relationship, not nearly so cozy. Were Woods to attend the dinner and pick up his Player of Year Award, it would be an unequivocal signal that he is trying to restore his relationship with his public and its representatives, the writers.
But all of this familiarity breeds only contempt among members of the non-golfing media, who see sports writers in general— and golf writers in particular -- as “captured” by their subjects. John Cassidy, who has covered the Tiger scandal for the New Yorker, used that term in ">his blog at newyorker.com Tuesday. Cassidy was clearly still wincing from Tiger’s references to reporters by first names and sometimes even nicknames.
“Listen to virtually any post-game press conference, and you will hear the players and the beat reporters talking in a private language, replete with inside jargon and other players’ nicknames. Operating in this way, the reporters get the quotes they need for their daily stories for the sports section, but they often ignore the bigger story that is dominating the news pages, such as a drugs or sex scandal.”“Tiger Woods effortlessly handling the polite queries from golf reporters”, said Cassidy, was clear evidence. While golf writers were parsing Woods’ words, writers like Cassidy were picking up the golf writers’ questioning of Woods, and judging it too little, too late--and too light.
“In Tigergate, it was the National Enquirer that first cottoned onto Tiger’s double life. But if Tiger’s wife Elin hadn’t chased him out of their Orlando house on the night of Thanksgiving, the golf press would still be happily churning out guff about what a great family man he is, and how much he misses his kids when he travels.”Cassidy would get an argument from most of the members of the media here who would argue that friendliness is part of the give and take of any relationship, and that it’s necessary to assure access to players, Tiger included. But did that cooperation really gain journalists access to the world’s No. 1? Not really. And have they lost any access because they’ve taken up the scandal story? No. It’s interesting to note that some of the journalists most critical of Tiger over the past five months were those he called by name Monday. Maybe Cassidy has a point.
--Bob Carney
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