They Are Not Tiger Woods

Pomp Braswell II is Tiger Woods.

That’s what he believed. That’s what he was sold.

Braswell is African American, grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, didn’t hit a golf ball until he was 18, then stumbled into Rancho Park and fell in love with a game that had long excluded people like him.

He practiced until his left shoulder broke and his savings were busted. He cleaned toilets at country clubs during the day so he could play a free round at dusk.

Braswell became good enough to win. But, snubbed by sponsors and stared down by patrons, he never felt good enough to belong.

Then, five years ago at the Masters, Woods became the first golfer of African American descent to win a major golf championship.

And, like many other African American golfers, Braswell leaped and cheered and truly believed the game had changed.

Isn’t that what the commercials later said? The ones with the diverse group of children staring into the camera and smiling?

“I am Tiger Woods.”

Didn’t he appear on another commercial painting him as the next Jackie Robinson?

“It was all going to be different,” Braswell said. “We had been waiting a long time for something like this. It was finally happening.”

Yet a few months after Woods hugged his father in Augusta, Braswell was sleeping in his car in Montana.

Trying to win a tournament with an empty wallet, he bathed in the locker room, putted for Big Macs and crumbled under the pressure.

Later that year, he wrote to 100 companies in search of sponsorships, phoned 100 CEOs, received 100 rejections.

Today, despite seven victories and 17 top-five finishes in satellite events in the last five years, Pomp Braswell is again broke and again searching, for the last time, for someone to support his dream.

Some nights he awakens in his tiny apartment, pulls out a milk crate and an eight-iron and climbs onto the crate to practice his balance.

Once, at 4 a.m., his wife padded out of bed to discover him in the middle of the living room, swinging a wedge hard enough to leave scars on the cottage cheese ceiling.

Earlier this year in Arkansas, fearful of pulling out of a tournament that would help him pay the rent, he played through a bout of diarrhea, shooting two under par despite soiling himself on the fifth hole.

“Everyone says Tiger Woods opened doors for African Americans,” Braswell said. “I’m trying to find those doors. I’m really trying.”

*

Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods.

He is not Jackie Robinson. He is not Arthur Ashe. He is not Muhammad Ali.

Five years after Woods made the televised promise to redecorate golf’s country clubs, the furniture has barely been moved.

Woods is still the only African American golfer on the PGA Tour.

There are no African Americans on the LPGA Tour.

There is only one African American on the Buy.com Tour, considered one step below the PGA Tour.

Only four African Americans compete on the Hooters Tour, two steps below the PGA.

In a world where 80% of even minor-league golfers have monetary help, allowing them to concentrate only on golf while working toward the tour, the African American golfers are generally a distracted group, scrounging desperately for help among a small group of other African Americans.

“You see guys barely breaking 80, getting all kinds of money thrown at them, $100,000 a year to play golf,” said Tim O’Neal, who missed qualifying for his PGA Tour card last year by one stroke. “You never see that kind of money thrown at a black guy.”

The problem is so real that actor Will Smith formed a company, Treyball Sports Management, solely to address it.

“There’s a lot of African American golfers out there, but nobody is hearing from them, because nine out of 10 don’t have accessibility to the money,” said Craig Crossley, Treyball manager whose company sponsors O’Neal and female golfer Dara Broadus. “Our sole intention to find these kids and give them a chance.”

Woods was supposed to change all of this.

But insiders say he has little contact with the PGA Tour hopefuls, nor does he allow them into his network.

Where Jackie Robinson once embraced and mentored Roy Campanella, Woods keeps his distance.

Critics say Woods, in becoming the best player in the world, has joined the insulated country club culture he once purported to change.

“I wish Tiger would reach back and help these guys, it would be a really nice gesture,” said Nathaniel Goldston, chairman of Gourmet Services Inc., the food service giant that sponsors Andy Walker on the Buy.com Tour.

While some players would like to see Woods use some of his enormous fortune for sponsorships--many expect he will be the first billion-dollar athlete--Goldston said it’s all about influence.

“It’s still a little bit of a good ol’ boy network out there, and it’s hard for us to crack,” said Goldston. “If Tiger tried, he would wield a lot of weight.”

Goldston has tried for two years to enter Walker into Atlanta’s BellSouth Classic on a sponsor’s exemption. He has called everyone from Hank Aaron to Andrew Young, to no avail.

“They have spots, but they never have a spot for us,” he said. “Can you imagine if Tiger ever made just one call, told organizers that he had a couple of guys that needed a chance?

“They would be like, ‘Whatever you need, Tiger.’ ”

Indeed, a couple of years ago, Woods made one comment about inequities on the PGA Tour, and officials rushed to placate him.

“A lot of us out here talk about it,” O’Neal said. “I’m not saying Tiger is right or wrong. I’m just saying I’d do it different.”

Woods’ handlers said that he was taking time off after the British Open and would not be available for comment.

But his remarks at Muirfield before the British Open supported the theory that he has become something less than a people’s champion.

When asked whether Augusta National should allow women members, he said, “It’s their prerogative.”

When asked if he felt the same way about clubs that denied access to minorities such as African Americans and Asians, he said, “Yes, I do.”

While the comments caused a stir in the media, they barely raised an eyebrow among those who have followed him closest.

The other African American golfers have long since understood the paradox of playing in the shadow of this reluctant pioneer.

They say potential sponsors continually compare them to Woods, as if all African Americans are supposed to be that good.

“It’s like, if you’re black, then you’ve got to be as good as Tiger, or you’re not worth it,” said Braswell.

This, combined with Woods’ refusal to offer help, has made their mandate clear.

Some of them feel they will succeed on the PGA Tour not because of Tiger Woods, but in spite of him.

*

Andy Walker is Tiger Woods.

You’d think.

He is the second-ranked African American golfer in the world, a member of Pepperdine’s national championship team in 1997, and is poised to join Woods on the PGA Tour.

Yet when Walker offered to wear Woods’ clothing line on tour this year, he was refused.

“There are two African Americans at this level in the world, and for us not to have any contact or meaningful relationship?” said Walker. “That’s kind of sad.”

Walker said the division between Woods and himself is clear.

“I’m not the kind of cat he hangs around,” Walker said. “I’m Jay-Z, he’s Hootie and the Blowfish.”

Although Woods’ mother is Asian American, and although Woods has called himself “Cablanasian,” his first comments after his first Masters win clearly defined his African American sensibilities.

He said that walking up the 18th fairway, he felt gratitude to Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder and other African American golfers who had paved the way.

“I said a little prayer of thanks to those guys,” Woods said at the time.

Today’s African American pros don’t give thanks to Woods, or really have time to reflect on much of anything.

They still work in a stressful world where they are viewed as different, a world where there are no major championship platforms that can erase such differences.

“It’s always been difficult, it’s always been a challenge,” said Walker. “Maybe Tiger has opened doors somewhere else.”

Kevin Odom, a Carlsbad resident who plays the Hooters Tour, was recently hassled by kids shouting “white power!” during his backswing at a tournament practice session in Chattanooga, Tenn.

While crossing a street to reach the next hole, Odom grabbed a four-iron and prepared to defend himself before the kids backed away.

“Sometimes I think it’s not fair that we have to step off a tee box and have those thoughts in our heads,” Odom said. “Nobody else has to do that.”

O’Neal was recently ordered out of a locker room in Eugene, Ore., before he explained that he was actually in the tournament.

“I told the guy, ‘What makes you think I’m not a player?’ ” O’Neal said. “Those little things happen to us all the time.”

According to the National Golf Foundation, in the last nine years, there has been more than a 100% increase in the number of African Americans playing golf.

That number is now approximately 882,000 out a total golf population of 26.7 million, or 3.3%.

“I see more black faces out there,” Odom said. “But I don’t see more black faces playing competitively.”

Braswell said it is little wonder that somebody is always asking him to carry their clubs.

While Woods becomes a worldwide fixture, other African American golfers remain a novelty.

“Guys still look at you, guys still talk,” said Braswell, who stands out at 6 feet 4, 245 pounds. “Their body language is still, what the hell are you doing out here?”

*

Why do you think you’re Tiger Woods?

And why should Tiger Woods care?

So wonders Joe Louis Barrow Jr., executive director of The First Tee, this country’s largest golf program for young minorities.

“For everyone to say we have to have a plethora of African Americans on the tour, that’s not a realistic view,” said Barrow, son of the late boxer Joe Louis. “And to place that burden on Tiger is unrealistic and unfair.”

Barrow, like those involved in the Tiger Woods Foundation, believes golf is best diversified at a young age.

The First Tee has built 89 golf centers in inner cities.

The Tiger Woods Foundation has held 25 clinics in 25 cities while donating to junior golf in those areas.

“But what happens when all those kids get into college and try to go out and make a living?” said Crossley of Treyball Sports. “What happens to them then?”

Countered Barrow, “What is to say that you must define successful golf as being a success on the tour? What if they pursue a career on the business side?”

Woods’ supporters say his influence is about more than just golf.

“Our foundation is not a golf foundation,” said Greg McLaughlin, executive director of the Los Alamitos-based Woods foundation. “There is a bigger picture involved.”

Woods’ foundation donates money to numerous causes, including Target House, a home for children being treated at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

“We’re doing our part for kids,” McLaughlin said. “The point goes beyond golf.”

Barrow agreed, saying, “If you’re saying Tiger should just give money to younger golfers, why place that burden on him? You’re not asking the same thing of Davis Love or Phil Mickelson or Notah Begay.”

Barrow said Woods’ social impact, changing the perception of golf in this country, is enough.

“Tiger is an entrepreneur,” Barrow said. “He is going out and making some money. That’s his job. Don’t place these extra burdens on him.”

*

Pomp Braswell II is Tiger Woods.

Still is. Still believes.

He’s 34. He plays with donated clubs. He once played a tournament that cost $150 to enter and paid $248 when he won.

The Culver City High graduate and former San Jose State player watches his two young children in their tiny Phoenix apartment while wife Amparo works during the day. Then he rushes out to hit balls before dark.

“All I need is one more chance,” he said. “Just give me a chance to play two years without worrying about where my next meal is coming from. See how I play then.”

He played the Hooters Tour with a sponsor for much of the last year, but then they parted ways this spring.

“I think he’s feeling a lot of pressure,” said Sam May, a Detroit real estate broker who backed Braswell. “I think it’s very hard for him.”

Hard?

For Braswell, hard is working all day at a golf range in Laguna Hills, then turning on the lights and hitting balls at 1 a.m.

Or raking the bunkers at a golf school in exchange for a lesson.

Or playing 36 holes on a granola bar.

Or trying to make a living at a sport he didn’t discover until he was an adult.

Braswell has considered quitting, but Amparo refuses to allow it.

“A man works this hard, something good will happen to him, I know it,” she said.

And so he keeps playing, if only on weekends, or in his living room, or in his mind.

Braswell wears a rubber band on his left wrist. He snaps it when things are going bad, reminding him to concentrate on the good.

“Who’s to say it’s too late?” he said, snap-snap-snapping. “Who’s to say?”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.