Did American golfer Tiger Woods refer to Kamala Harris' manner of speech as a "fake black accent," calling it "embarrassing and extremely offensive"? No, that's not true: The online rumor was first published by a self-labeled parody and satire account. Lead Stories found no confirmation that Woods ever said that.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 2, 2024. It said:
The GOAT Tiger Woods speaks.
The image had the quoted text overlay:
'Kamala's fake blackaccent is embarrassingand extremely offensive.'- Tiger Woods
This is what it looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Sep 3 23:05:41 2024 UTC)
The post implied that it was authentic Woods' words.
However, a reverse image search showed that the quote originated from a different account that later deleted the tweet. Lead Stories saved a screenshot:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Sep 3 18:08:55 2024 UTC)
Although the initial post did not show a satire or parody label, the account that published it (archived here) includes it in its bio:
⛳️Voted 'Best Twitter Golf Account'⛳️Not for Boomers or Karens⛳️#Satire⛳️Golf version of @TheBabylonBee and @TheOnion
⛳️#Parody⛳️
It is not the first time posts from this account have been shared on social media without a proper label by multiple users. Lead Stories wrote about it here and here.
The account's name -- @pgatuor -- is a misspelled reference to the organization that governs professional golf tournaments in North America, the PGA Tour (archived here), but is unrelated to it.
The real organization's handle on X is @PGATOUR (archived here). A Google search across its account for the keywords seen here (archived here) produced no results.
A Google search across Tiger Woods' account on X for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed zero matches.
As of this writing, his official Facebook and Instagram accounts made no mention of the quote in question.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) led to a list of articles questioning the authenticity of the citation or referring to it as a "fake quote."
In the summer of 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden stepped down from the race.
Woods is known for having played golf with former President Donald Trump (archived here), who, in 2024, became the Republican nominee for the third time.
Lead Stories contacted Woods' representatives but did not get an immediate response. If we receive one, this story will be updated as appropriate.
The same claim was also reviewed by Sportskeeda.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 2024 U.S. presidential elections can be found here.
