I don't know why, but I feel like I'm home. I hope I will be back soon. The hectic pace felled Woods in Wednesday's pro-am practice round, when he quit on the 13th hole, citing heat exhaustion, jet lag and all the attention from his sleepless first night in the country. But he recovered with a 70 in the first round and attended a private dinner Thursday night, where he was applauded for trying to imitate the intricate hand movements of traditional Thai dancers. Most Thais are subsistence farmers whose only experience with golf is when their land is expropriated to build courses.
Public courses are rare and so are chances for ordinary people to learn the game.
They want to give honors to someone who is basically a foreigner, while they do nothing to support our local athletes. Gen. Charouck Arirachakaran, secretary general of the Olympic Committee of Thailand, was quoted in The Nation as saying Tiger is no Somluck Kamsing, a boxer who won Thailand's first gold medal in Atlanta. He takes part in every tournament as an American national and there is little positive publicity Thailand can derive out of it. Only his mother is Thai.