Tiger Woods' extraordinary victory in the Master's tournament crosses a number of lines -- between the genteel and the popular, between a black and white view of race and the multiracial reality. PNS editor Andrea Lewis offers a public course and private course view of the game of golf, and suggests admiration of Woods may mark the start of a new cultural understanding.

Golf is not a stadium game of crowds, cheering and jeering. It's gentile country club decorum. It is polite applause from the "gallery." It's the hushed voices of commentators, a meandering pace, aviary terminology. It reeks of the Empire and conspicuous consumption. It wafts affluence and power.

Except for a few pioneers like Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder and Lee Trevino, the only people of color you are likely to see on the PGA tour are either caddies or spectators.

Enter Tiger Woods, 21 years old with a bi-racial identity. He demolished the field of top professionals in the country's most exclusive tournament. He is the master of "The Masters," a golf tournament held in Dixie-land, at a club that admitted its first black member just six years ago.

Tiger Woods represents the new race paradigm in our culture, living proof that we must, at long last, begin to define the issue beyond black and white. He is Thai and black (and American Indian and white on his father's side) and has rejected attempts to identify him in narrow racial terms.

"He is the first African American, the first Asian American, to win the Masters," golf commentators said. They spent the weekend trying to prepare their tongues for the future of golf. Tiger's shots were not just "Lovely" or "quite nice," they were "large!"

"He's all over this, all over it!" gushed one enamored broadcaster. There was even passing mention of how, in the past, golf had traditionally excluded "men of color." No kidding! Wow!

Growing up in a middle class black family in Detroit, I learned a lot about golf's split personality. My mother was, and is, a passionate golfer. She played every weekend, weather allowing, and even sent me off to golf lessons when I was a teenager.

I remember her taking me out for my first nine holes at the Belle Isle Golf Course, where I proceeded to hook a long series of balls into the Detroit River. Moms was patient. "That's OK," she said, "I brought plenty of balls."

I wasn't very good at golf, and though my lack of skill made me lose interest there was something very satisfying about the experience. I especially loved the perfect, sweet sound of the club hitting the ball off the tee. My lousy play was washed away by the pleasures of wind and water and by the sight of lots of other black folks having a relaxing afternoon.

That was the public course view.

The PGA view comes from the private courses. After all, golf is still predominantly a country club sport, and country club members are still predominantly affluent and white. Golf may be a shade darker and a degree cooler thanks to Tiger Woods, but the sport's elitist class image will not fade overnight.

Nike, Titleist and the other winners in the Tiger endorsement sweepstakes are surely hoping that young and old will chant "I Am Tiger Woods" in growing numbers, but it's doubtful Tiger will have an effect on urban youth comparable to that of someone like Michael Jordan. Kids who want to be "like Mike" can find a pick-up game within a few blocks of home, show off their best moves on the neighborhood's streets, and play for free.

Most urban areas have only a limited number of public golf courses, and buying a set of clubs is a more expensive proposition than buying a basketball, baseball mitt or tennis racquet.

Maybe in fifty years, people will look back at Tiger Woods win at the Masters and talk about it as an historic moment for race relations and for sport. May be Tiger will be around to tell tales of the early days of his long and storied career.

I hope so. We demand a lot of our cultural heroes -- perhaps too much. We need for them to be more than human. We need them to reassure us that there is still some slim hope of achieving the American Dream.

Black Americans have always seen their sports heroes' individual struggles for success as a microcosm of our larger struggles -- Jesse Owen humbling the Nazis, Joe Louis winning the heavyweight title, Smith and Carlos on the victory stand in 1968, Arthur Ashe, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson. Now he's Tiger Woods, Jr. Maybe that's why some are reluctant to share Tiger (even if it means affirming the one-drop-of-blood theory that has served racists for so long).

It is exciting to think about the kind of future Tiger may have in golf, but scary to think about this young man's future in the public eye.

For the moment, we can just savor the pleasures of being witness to the passage to a new stage of cultural history.

Traditionally, anyone who looks black is seen as being black. It's the old "one drop of blood" theory transmuted into "one nappy hair." Ultimately, it didn't matter if you were of mixed race -- if you looked like you had one drop of black blood, your social identity was so defined. And it wasn't just whites who saw the world in these terms. Blacks have been as guilty of this narrow viewpoint as anyone.