For Tiger’s sake, boycotting The Golf Channel would be a bad idea

A week ago, Brandel Chamblee, an analyst on The Golf Channel pinned a report card of sorts for the 2013 PGA Tour season on Golf.com, and the most popular man in the game (and the ’13 PGA Tour Player of the Year) got the grunt of Chamblee’s red ink.

Woods was given a “F” for his season, with the implication being that Woods bent the rules of golf more than once, but the column focused on what happened at the Masters when Tiger took a drop that ended up costing him additional strokes and had the sports world buzzing about a possible disqualification at Augusta National.

The Woods camp has already came out and said that legal action could be taken against Chamblee for the implication of cheating, and while that might be agent Mark Steinberg raising his voice to meet the boom of Chamblee, a more likely situation was hinted at by Ed Sherman over at the Sherman Report.

What if Tiger Woods simply boycotts The Golf Channel?

This isn’t the craziest idea ever, with Sherman pointing to Michael Jordan, a friend of Tiger, as a man that once did this same thing to Sports Illustrated when a cover joked about his attempt at professional baseball.

But would a boycott be smart for Woods?

The hard facts about Tiger and the game of golf, and The Golf Channel, and really any publication these days is that we all need Woods more than he needs us. The guy is so big now that no interview or Q and A or sit down is going to help his image, but him taking The Golf Channel to task for these comments by Chamblee seems like something that could potentially damage what Tiger has worked so hard to remake.

Face it, in 2013 Tiger has been as approachable by the media as ever. The guy has actually given solid answers during press conferences, told fun stories (Remember the Mark O’Meara story after Tiger’s near-59 at the Bridgestone Invitational?) and seemed to actually enjoy his time behind the microphone.

Taking this out on the company that spends a lot of their time praising Tiger seems like it would hurt Woods way more than it would make a point.

Tiger is a smart man that seems to have every move premeditated weeks in advance, but this is also a guy that shook hands with Steve Williams on the 18th green at the British Open and was doing Fresh Prince of Bel-Air celebrations with Matt Kuchar at the Presidents Cup (not to mention how open he has been with girlfriend Lindsey Vonn this year). The smile has been around a little more this season, and despite the fact that he failed to win a major in ’13 it was still a solid year for the 37-year-old.

For Tiger, maybe the best course of action is simply none at all. The Chamblee column seemed like click bait and it worked brilliantly in that sense, but those words echoed are not exactly what everyone at The Golf Channel believes and taking actions out on a conglomerate for one man’s opinion seems like disqualifying an entire PGA Tour field just because one man signed an incorrect scorecard.

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Shane Bacon is the editor of Devil Ball Golf and Busted Racquet on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shanebaconblogs@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter at @ShaneBacon!