I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it cannot be a good thing for the PGA Tour that the biggest news so far in the pre-Tiger Woods part of the season is the controversy over Golf Channel host Kelly Tilghman’s poor attempt at humor a couple of weeks ago.
It’s fair to say that Tilghman’s comments were blown completely out of proportion. Tilghman by all accounts is a charming person and a good reporter, but she is placed in a position by the Golf Channel where she has to fill up hours of time over many weekends by making idle banter with her co-host, Nick Faldo. Few people this side of Letterman or Leno have the ability to make witty comments over such prolonged periods. If you don’t believe it, then just listen to your local news anchor’s banter with the weatherperson and sports anchor on the evening news. Consequently, it’s hardly surprising that Tilghman made a mistake in judgment under the circumstances.
At any rate, the completely humiliated Tilghman apologized quickly and earnestly to Woods, who graciously accepted her apology and tried to play down the whole matter. Meanwhile, under pressure from the Al Sharpton’s of the world, the Golf Channel probably overreacted a bit by suspending Tilghman from her Golf Channel duties for two weeks. But at least that seemed to be the end of the entire affair.
But not so fast. In a truly remarkable display of bad judgment, GolfWeek magazine ran a cover story about the Tilghman affair in last week’s issue that contained a cover photograph of a hangman’s noose. Amidst an immediate public outcry, the PGA Tour and several advertisers threatened to pull their accounts with Golfweek, prompting the magazine to fire its longtime editor and vice president, Dave Seanor. Ay, yi yi, yi, yi!
So, as all that dust settled, longtime PGA Tour and Senior PGA Tour member Jim Thorpe cut Tilghman some slack, but blasted Golfweek over this past weekend:

“We know there was no racist intent. It was just a bad choice of words,” he said [with regard to Tilghman]. “But the guy from Golfweek? Let him get barbecued. That’s just a major mistake on his part.”

Which leads us to the recommendation of the day from golf writer and blogger, Geoff Shackelford:

“Just a suggestion to the Golfweek staff: I would not put an image of Jim Thorpe barbecuing Dave Seanor on this week’s cover.”