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But I've always had a secret desire to go Hollywood, and an editor at Icon magazine decided to try me out by having me interview Tiger Woods' father, Earl, reasoning that a bona fide reporter might get him to say something interesting.

The night before the interview, I went to a local Border's Books cafe and speed-read -- but didn't buy -- the most recent of Earl Woods' autobiographies. I was relieved to find there was more than advice about improving your swing. With a Thai mother and a black father who also claims Chinese and Native American blood, Tiger Woods is the sports equivalent of a Benetton ad. And his father had a lot to say. Earl's book, "Playing Through," forced me to think more carefully about the racism faced by African-Americans of my parents' generation, who came before black power but after the worst of Jim Crow.

And Earl Woods was a jazz fan.

OK, I thought. I can do this.

Earl was a good interview, wittier than I expected, a bit pompous at times, but very intelligent. We talked for about two hours on the telephone.

For the article, I selected quotes that emphasized the themes I found most interesting: the creative similarities between jazz and golf, and Earl's experiences with racism compared to Tiger's milder ones, and a funny -- I thought -- riff on the awful weather in Scotland, golf's heartland, which Woods insisted was a worse place to play the game than Africa.

I turned the piece in and I forgot about the whole thing.

That is, until Monday, when I got a frantic message from a reporter from Golf World. The magazine had zeroed in on the Scotland joke, which it deemed racist. Here's what Earl said about Scotland (Icon tightened it up a tad):

"That's for white people. It's the heart of golf for people who came from there. It sucks as far as I'm concerned. It is the sorriest weather and I've made the public statement that people had better be happy that the Scots lived there instead of soul brothers. The game of golf would have never been invented. We would have been inside listening to jazz and we wouldn't have been stupid enough to go out in that weather and play a silly-ass game and freeze yourself to death. We would have been inside laughing and joking with rum and stuff. Now, Africa ... I played golf in Africa and I knew I was home."

Golf World wanted to equate his remarks with those of Fuzzy Zoeller, who became a sports world pariah in 1997 for joking that Tiger Woods would serve fried chicken and collard greens at the next Master's dinner.

I knew about as much about Fuzzy Zoeller as I had known about Tiger Woods. But I had to say something, because Earl was denying that he said this to me; in fact, he was denying that he had even given the interview. Of course, I had the tape to prove it.

The next thing I knew, I was giving a sound bite. "Earl Woods has paid his dues," I told the Golf World guy. "He's entitled to crack a joke."

Golf World's piece closed with my quote and the following kicker: "Isn't that what Fuzzy Zoeller said?"

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