Augusta Chairman Takes Surprise Shot at Woods

Augusta Chairman Takes Surprise Shot at Woods The chairman of Augusta National, Billy Payne, delivered Diamond toolssome surprisingly critical remarks about Tiger Woods Wednesday afternoon at his annual State of the Masters press conference.

Payne began by praising Woods’s achievements, calling him a peer of the golf greats Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. “As he ascended in our rankings of the world’s great golfers, he became an example to our kids that success is directly attributable to hard work and effort. But as he now says himself, he forgot in the process to remember that with fame and fortune comes responsibility, not invisibility.”

Payne held out the possibility that Woods could redeem his reputation. “But certainly his future will never again be measured only by his performance against par, but measured by the sincerity of his efforts to change,” he said. “We at Augusta hope and pray that our great champion will begin his new life here tomorrow in a positive, hopeful and constructive manner, but this time with a significant difference from the past. This year, it will not be just for him, but for all of us who believe in second chances.”

In response to a question, Payne confirmed that he had had a conversation with Woods but would not go into details. He said that Woods had attended the annual champions dinner last night in the Augusta National clubhouse – an event at which by tradition the club chairman is the only non-champion guest present.

In response to another question, he said that Augusta National was not concerend about Woods’s return overshadowing the tournament. “We are very secure in who we are,” he said. “We just kind of do things our way. We are not threatened by other big news stories or things like that.

The concept of heroes seemed to be on Payne’s mind, as he used the word in two other contexts. First, he said that Augusta National co-founded the Asian Amateur tournament in China last October (the winner gets an automatic Masters invitation) to “create heroes from that region of the world, and inspire others to take up the game.”