Monday, November 7, 2011

Steve Williams doesn’t see life in a variant of colours - just black and white.

And even then, in his mind, he much prefers white over black.

For, he has an opinion on most things. Just ask him. Seemingly, he doesn’t mind letting the whole world know what he thinks too. As we all found out earlier last week when he decided it wise to announce to the world that he was of the mind that Tiger Woods was a “black arsehole”, as he was accepting an award (mock) for the best victory by a caddie.

It’s not the first time his mouth has got him in trouble, either. A few years back, he called Phil Mickleson a prick. Working for Woods at the time, he was forced to apologise. One would have thought that Williams should have learnt from his original mistake. But then that would require a modicum of humility. This, though, is something that appears to be sadly lacking in the William’s persona.

And here he was arrogantly mouthing off about his former employer.

Why is Williams so bitter towards Woods? After all, he had ten great years as his caddie. Not only that, the New Zealander has earned at least $US ten million from being Woods sidekick. He would not have earned anywhere near as much had he been a caddie for any other golfer. And he would do well to realise that he would not have garnered such a healthy bank balance if it were not for Woods prodigious work ethic.

It's not as if Woods decided to head for a refreshing lie down in the bushes of relaxation happily contented in the knowledge that he has been hard at work firmly inserting yet another trophy into the slot machine of success.

No, the more he won the more Woods dedicated himself to driving forward his ambitions of winning even more majors. And he did that with hard work.

Which Williams benefitted from to the extreme. And yet he still chooses to attack the hand that fed him for so long.

Some people just never learn, it seems. Perhaps the success he achieved as Wood’s caddie over the years has gone to his head. Williams now appears to believe that he is the star, not the golfer, and is bigger than the game itself.

Indeed, how else can one explain his behaviour since losing his job as Woods caddie? And, in particular, after his new boss, Adam Scott, won their first tournament together. No sooner had Scott won than Williams was busy declaring to all that would listen that it was the best victory of his career. While a caddie is an integral component of a pro golfer’s performance, it is still the player that swings the club. This Williams seems to have conveniently forgotten.

He now comes across as the personification of arrogance.

One can only assume that it is this arrogance which allows him to justify his bigotry by passing it off as a sense of humour. That he believes he was being humorous simply defies belief. And if this was in fact his humour working at the top of its game, then one would hate to hear what he comes up with on a bad day.

Of course, there will be those that spring to the defence of Williams, stating that the guy really is a decent person, and that he is not a racist. Honestly, this kind of logic doesn’t just introduce itself to the bizarre, it quickly excuses itself with indecent haste, then heads off at great velocity along the highway of the preposterous before taking off into an other worldly realm of implausibility.

It is not part of his make-up, they will say. Well, yes, it is. If it wasn’t, then quite simply Williams would not have deposited this vile upon the golfing world. Or for that matter, any sphere of life.

Put simply, part of him is racist. That he couldn’t keep this vomit inducing bile to himself speaks volumes for the moral fibre of the man.

Sure, there will be those that point out the good he does, such as the trust he has set up to help sick children. And they are right; he has done a lot of good.

Which makes his latest outburst all the sadder. Surely he would rather be remembered as someone who donated one million dollars of his own money to charity than as a racist. Now, while he may be remembered for the former to a certain extent, it is more likely that his legacy will be that of a racist.

Unfortunately, what he has also given the world is a timely reminder that true equality is still out of our grasp. What Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, along with many others, fought so hard for is yet to truly come to fruition.

Fifty-five years on and bigotry is still roaming free in the minds of the uneducated, ignorant and the downright stupid.

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