BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Tiger Woods doesn't envision himself a racial pioneer, single-handedly taking on the elitist country clubbers who believe a black's role on the golf course should be limited to caddying.


"It's tough enough worrying about one shot," he says.


But it was hard to ignore the social significance of what took place Sunday. There was Woods, the nation's hottest young golfer -- who also happens to be black -- strolling out to hit a few practice shots at Shoal Creek, a landmark site in golfing's civil rights movement.


Woods, who took part in the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate tournament Monday and Tuesday, was only 14 when Shoal Creek founder Hall Thompson said his all-white club wouldn't be pressured into accepting blacks prior to the 1990 PGA championship.


"I was a little young to understand what was going on,'' remembered Woods, now an 18-year-old Stanford freshman who vaulted to national prominence this year with his dramatic come-from-behind victory at the U.S. Amateur. "But from what's been said and written about it, I do understand now.''


As a youngster, Woods said he felt the sting of people who felt he had no business playing the game, even as his immense talent became more and more apparent.


"I faced (discrimination) a little bit growing up,'' he said Sunday before his practice round. Pressed for details, he replied, "I don't want to get into it.''


But the topic kept coming back to 1990, when Thompson's comments finally exposed the dirty little secret that Woods and other black golfers had known about all their lives.


"I thought it was a sad situation," Woods said. "It's not supposed to be like that in the '90s. Isn't this America? Aren't we supposed to be one big melting pot?


"Then again, it woke everybody up that this kind of stuff still happens."


Golfing's hierarchy quickly mandated that clubs have open membership policies in order to play host to tournaments. Even Shoal Creek admitted a black businessman to defuse the PGA fiasco, but he's still the only minority member four years later.


Pate, the 1976 U.S. Open champion who was a charter member of Shoal Creek, realizes that his club is still a lightning rod of controversy.


"For the most part, I think we've put all that behind us and gone forward,'' he said. "I think the best thing I can say is a lot of good came out of what happened in '90."