| Sergio Garcia (left) and mortal enemy Tiger Woods (right). |
Well actually, Sergio Garcia will NOT apologize to Tiger Woods yet...but if if he did, he'd make sure Wood's felt at home by offering him fried chicken.
According to The Guardian's Ewan Murray, Garcia was at the European Tour's gala players' awards dinner, where he was asked a question about Woods.
His answer could be construed as a racist remark by everyone except the author of this article:
"Garcia was asked in jest if he would have the American round for dinner one night during the upcoming US Open. "We will have him round every night," Garcia said. "We will serve fried chicken."
Garcia apologized, calling his comment "silly remark" and claiming that it was never meant to be interpreted in a "racist manner." The truth is, Garcia probably wasn't thinking when he said it.
This latest spat is as a result of an incident at the Player's Championship earlier this month. As Garcia was getting ready to play his second shot, he heard a raucous applause for Woods as he attempted to play himself out of the woods 50 yards away. Garcia claims Woods engineered this sequence of events to deliberately distract him while Woods claims that field marshals had told him Garcia had already played his shot. The marshals have equivocated on the issue.
Was Garcia being racist to Woods? Yes, according to most people.
Garcia genuinely dislikes Woods and there is plenty of history between the two golfers. I said something racist and didn't mean for you all to construe it that way is not an excuse. If you dislike someone and all you can come up with off-the-cuff are quasi-racist quips then that is telling in and of itself.
It's OK to dislike someone and be angry with them but there is a lexicon of vocabulary and jabs you can make that don't refer to obtuse, race-related stereotypes. What's Garcia gonna do next? Throw a banana at Woods and then expect us not to interpret it as racist?
