Ambassador Woods

He looks you in the eye now. He never did that before.

“You can be yourself,” Tiger Woods says. “That’s something a lot of people don’t realize.”

He laughs with you now, raising his eyebrows and flashing that grand-slam smile and letting you in on the joke. He never used to do that, either.

Asked Monday how to play his favorite holes at Sherwood Country Club, Woods grins at a group of journalists in golf shirts and says, “How would I want you to play them? Or me?”

He gets it now. All of it. The achievement, the fame, the responsibility.

Responsibility. His word.

“I have a responsibility to my parents, the fans, the media, my sponsors,” he says. “I have a responsibility to be honest and truthful.”

In turn, perhaps, we have a responsibility to recognize that Tiger Woods is taking the next step to becoming our most important athlete since Muhammad Ali.

This seemed clear Monday when he showed up

in Thousand Oaks to pitch his new sponsorship

of the Williams World Challenge tournament here

Nov. 27-Dec. 3.

Twelve top golfers, among them Woods--after Woods, does it matter who else is playing?--will gather at Sherwood for a shootout whose proceeds will go to the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Most athletes who run these gigs preview them with a quick, slick interview about nothing deeper than their foundation’s home address.

Woods doesn’t do quick and slick. He says he tried that, during his first couple of years on the tour, while fighting against those wishing to put him at the center of our sports culture.

“When I first came out on tour, I had been at Stanford with all these brilliant people, all these Olympians, and people are telling me, ‘Everything you do is special?’ ” he says. “And I’m thinking, right! I was very uncomfortable.”

But as he has grown--as a 21-year-old oddity has become a 24-year-old role model--Woods says he realized he was only fighting against himself. He figured out that, like it or not, being the biggest sports star on the planet means you have the loudest voice.

And maybe those words should be used for something more than shouting, “You the man!”

Says Woods, “I realized, this is it, this is my job, this is who I am.”

On Monday, during 40 minutes with four local reporters, then 30 minutes addressing a larger throng, Woods answers everything.

He is critical of opportunities given young minority, economically disadvantaged golfers.

He says this even though his tournament is being held at a private club that, by its owner’s admission, does nothing special for disadvantaged golfers.

“We still have a long way to go,” Woods says.

He is critical of the recent spate of victory celebrations by athletes such as Terrell Owens and the Olympic men’s 400-meter relay team.

He says this even though many athletes involved in those celebrations are either his friends or admirers.

“I have no problem with getting excited,” he says, not needing to note that he was practically the inventor of the controlled fist pump. “But you have to be aware of the person you’re competing with. You can’t lose sight of your peers. You have to respect them.”

He says that, despite having won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments this year, he made only two good shots--on the eighth hole on Saturday at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and on the 14th hole on Sunday at the British Open at St. Andrews.

“[Ben] Hogan once said that the best week he ever had, he only had four perfect shots,” Woods says. “I have yet to get to that higher level.”

He is asked to name one time he would have liked a mulligan.

“Can I have two?” he says, laughing, and notes the 10th and 12th holes at Augusta.

He talks about his dreams. And they don’t involve a championship.

“I’m telling you, in 10, 15, 20 years, some kid is going to come along who blows me out of the water,” he says. “He’s going to be bigger, stronger, more athletic. He is going to have the talent of a Ken Griffey Jr. or Michael Jordan.

“He is going to say ‘I love basketball, I love baseball, but, you know, golf is a bigger love.”

Unsaid is that this golfer will have picked the sport because he once watched a guy named Tiger Woods.

“Now that would be pretty cool,” Woods says.

The kids, that’s what this is about, this Monday gabfest at the other end of the country from the swanky Orlando, Fla., neighborhood he calls home.

He came here on a private plane from Las Vegas, where his foundation held a concert. He also does several clinics a year for disadvantaged children.

This major tournament, featuring David Duval and Sergio Garcia challenging Woods, will be just one more fund-raiser.

Unlike other top athletes today--and this includes Michael Jordan--Woods seems about more than just selling shoes.

“I want to be able to look back and say anybody who wants to compete in golf can do it, just like basketball, baseball or track,” he says. “That’s not the case now. There’s not enough programs now. The impoverished kids can’t play.”

He talks about how, growing up the son of a retired military man and housewife in Cypress, he was the best junior golfer in town and still had trouble feeling accepted.

“We would go out of town to big tourneys, but because of hotel costs we could only afford to show up the night before the event,” he says. “I would say, ‘Dad, I feel left behind’ because we could not even afford to get there in time for a practice round.”

Woods laments that, despite advancements made because of his achievements, most aspiring young inner-city golfers are still left behind.

“In the process of change, a lot of kids are missing the boat,” he says. “It eats at me that a lot of kids have talent and interest, but don’t have the money to play.”

Proving Woods’ point, Sherwood owner David Murdock is asked if his country club has any programs for disadvantaged golfers.

“No,” he says. “You can’t open it up when it’s a private club.”

Club officials quickly note that, on Mondays when the club is closed, Sherwood hosts about 28 charity functions a year. But the point has been made.

Tiger talks about having played a course in Industry Hills, where he scored well despite the smog. He talks about having played a course at Griffith Park and is still proud of shooting five under par, despite being penalized a stroke after swinging above his ball when a bee landed on it during his backswing.

“This is still my hometown,” he says. “Maybe I’m not around physically, but all my friends are still here.”

Near the end of the interview, Tiger Woods is asked what he would be doing if he weren’t playing golf.

“Not talking to you right now,” he says, laughing at what would be an unfortunate thing indeed.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.