Tiger's race trauma

Woods, who spent his formative years in Cypress, California, has finally opened up to Barkley with this shocking tale: "I became aware of my racial identity on my first day of school, on my first day of kindergarten.

"A group of sixth graders tied me to a tree, spray-painted the word 'nigger' on me, and threw rocks at me. That was my first day of school. And the teacher really didn't do much of anything.

"I used to live across the street from school and kind of down the way a little bit. The teacher said 'okay, just go home'. So I had to outrun all these kids going home, which I was able to do.

"It was certainly an eye-opening experience, you know, being five years old."

Woods honed his golfing skills at the Navy course close to where his father, a Green Beret, was stationed. He tells Barkley that there was a minimum age limit of 10 to play the fairways and greens.

"For some reason all the white kids who were 10 and under were allowed to play, though I wasn't. I had people who were older - and I don't know if they were servicemen or retired or active or just guests... I don't know who they were - use the N word with me numerous times."

Later, as one of America's top up-and coming golfers, Woods was still not immune to prejudice. He said: "Right before the 1994 US Amateurs, when I was 18, I was out practising, just hitting pitch shots and some guy just yelled over the fence and used the N word numerous times at me. That's in 1994."

Three years later, Woods' colour and family background became a subject of a media frenzy when he claimed his first major title with his historic win at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia.

It is a tradition of the tournament that the winner chooses the menu at the next champion's dinner. Fuzzy Zoeller, the 1979 Masters champion and something of a wisecracker on the professional golf circuit, called 21-year-old Woods "that little boy" and urged him not to offer fried chicken or collard greens "or whatever the hell they serve".

There was public outcry over the racial nature of the jibe and Zoeller was forced to issue several apologies. Woods' reaction, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, was to reveal that it bothered him when he was called an African American. Having researched his family history Woods said he was one-fourth black, one-fourth Thai, onefourth Chinese, one-eighth white and one-eighth American Indian.

"Growing up," he said, "I came up with this name, I'm a 'Cablinasian'."

That sense of self-identity has shaped Woods' attitude to race and racism, and helped him decide how best to use the millions of dollars he and his sponsors pour into the Tiger Woods Foundation.

In Barkley's book he says: "When I was little, it was about trying to help people who were black. As I've grown up I've come to the decision that I don't want to take that particular approach anymore.

"I want to help everybody. So my foundation will be done with that in mind. I don't care who you are, what race you are, or what your ethnicity is...I will be a leader for everybody. Not just one group.

"I don't want to limit myself, and I won't be pigeonholed."