• GOLFWEEK TV SPECIAL REPORT: The Kelly Tilghman saga
By JEFF RUDE
Senior WriterORLANDO, Fla. – Fuzzy Zoeller has advice for Kelly Tilghman.
“Just keep smiling and kill people with kindness. And remember, the sun will come up tomorrow,” said Zoeller, who 11 years ago experienced a similar career setback as Tilghman, the Golf Channel anchor who was suspended Jan. 9 for making a racially insensitive remark five days earlier during the Round 2 telecast of the Mercedes Championships.
“Time heals all wounds,” Zoeller said Jan. 11 via cell phone from Naples, Fla. “I know she’s in a tough spot.”
Tilghman was suspended for two weeks, without pay, for saying during playful banter with analyst Nick Faldo that young players who wanted to challenge Tiger Woods should “lynch him in a back alley.”
She returned to Orlando the day her suspension was handed down. Rich Lerner is taking over her role in the booth with Faldo for the Sony Open and the Bob Hope Classic. Mike Ritz assumed Lerner’s duties as post-round player interviewer.
Tilghman presumably has been ordered by Golf Channel not to discuss the situation publicly. Golf Channel spokesman Dan Higgins said emphatically that Tilghman will not be available for interviews anytime soon. She declined an e-mail request for comment and no one answered the door on the evening of Jan. 10, when two
Golfweek reporters went to her home in Windermere, Fla., just a couple of miles down the road from Woods’ home in the gated community of Islesworth.
Page Thompson, president of Golf Channel, told
The New York Times that it was unlikely Tilghman would be fired or disciplined beyond the two-week suspension without pay.
More Kelly Tilghman coverage:
• Rude: Keep Tilghman’s mistake in context
• Golf Channel suspends Tilghman for two weeks.
• Tough quotes: A history of insensitive remarks in sports• Was Golf Channel’s two-week suspension fair? Vote here.
“We’re talking about someone with a spotless, 10-year record,” Page said. “There is no evidence in her background of offensive beliefs and statements. She’s a friend of Tiger Woods’s. She is a pioneer woman sportscaster. Her whole background would make you say that this is a remark that is completely out of character.”
Thompson said procedures were under review at Golf Channel to ensure that it reacts more quickly to similar circumstances in the future. Although Tilghman apologized to Woods the day after making the offending remark, she did not apologize on-air to viewers until the Round 4 Mercedes telecast.
“That’s something we have to fix,” Thompson told
The Times.
After a closing 78 at the ’97 Masters that dropped him into a tie for 34th place, a disappointed Zoeller was asked about the performance of Woods, who shot a tournament record 270, won by 12 shots and became the youngest Masters champion.
“That little boy is driving well and he's putting well,” Zoeller said. “He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year (at the Champions Dinner). Got it?”
Zoeller then smiled, snapped his fingers, and walked away before turning and adding, “or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.”
In circumstances similar to the Tilghman episode, Zoeller’s remarks went unnoticed until several days later, when a CNN editor called his superiors’ attention to them when reviewing a tape of the interview. Zoeller, long known as one of golf’s funny ambassadors, was branded by some media pundits as a racist, and the furor was exacerbated when Woods, then 21 and with a different management team in his first full season, did not respond for three days to Zoeller’s apology. As a result of the incident, Zoeller lost endorsement deals with K-Mart and Dunlop Golf and it took him years to recover from the fallout.
Zoeller said he he has become more careful about what he says, and to whom.
“I paid my price,” Zoeller told
Golfweek, referring to both his financial loss and emotional wounds.
Tilghman was laughing during the exchange with Faldo, and Woods’ agent at IMG said he didn’t think there was any ill intent.
But the comments became prevalent on news shows and Internet discussion boards Jan. 9, and the Rev. Al Sharpton joined the fray by demanding Tilghman be fired immediately. Within two hours of an appearance by Sharpton on CNN, Golf Channel announced the suspension. Though it could be deduced that the channel caved in to pressure from Sharpton, Higgins said discussions about disciplinary action had already begun.
“There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this,” Golf Channel said in a statement.
Thompson was at a loss to explain Tilghman’s comment.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know what she was thinking,” Thompson told The Times. “I found the comment to be offensive. No one here thinks that Kelly meant the remark to hurt Tiger Woods or anyone else, but the words were hurtful and that’s why she was suspended.”
Tilghman became golf’s first female anchor last year when the PGA Tour signed a 15-year deal in which Golf Channel broadcasts the first three events of the year, weekday coverage of all Tour events, and full coverage of the Fall Series and opposite-field events.
The suspension ends in time for the Buick Invitational on Jan. 24, when Woods will make his 2008 debut.
Faldo and Tilghman were discussing young players who could challenge the world’s No. 1 player toward the end of Friday’s broadcast at Kapalua when Faldo suggested that “to take Tiger on, maybe they should just gang up for a while.”
“Lynch him in a back alley,” Tilghman replied.
“While we believe that Kelly’s choice of words was inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate,” Golf Channel said in its statement. “Consequently, we have decided to suspend Kelly for two weeks, effective immediately.”
Woods and Tilghman have known each other 12 years. In early December, she was picked to host a Nike club demonstration with Woods in south Florida.
Tilghman was helped when Mark Steinberg, Woods’ agent at IMG, said it was a non-issue and considered the matter “case closed.”
“Tiger and Kelly are friends, and Tiger has a great deal of respect for Kelly,” Steinberg said Jan. 8 in a statement released by Golf Channel. “Regardless of the choice of words used, we know unequivocally that there was no ill-intent in her comments.”
• • •
Jeff Rude is a
Golfweek senior writer. To reach him e-mail
jrude@golfweek.com.
Golfweek Editor Dave Seanor and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Posted: 1/11/2008
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