Former Tennis great, Martina Navratilova, enjoyed a storied professional career. She is a proud winner of 18 major singles titles, 31 major women’s doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles in women’s tennis, the most in the Open Era.
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But since hanging up her boots in 2006, Navratilova has been a staunch critic of politics across the world. She has fired her shots against former POTUS, Donald Trump, on more than one occasion. During a Twitter feud that arose after Trump’s possible disability came to light, Navratilova made a controversial comment which disregarded golf as a sport, leaving many in the fraternity angered.
Martina Navratilova resorts golf to ‘mere activity’
The Czech–American star was the first to ignite the conversation when she retweeted a video that featured Donald Trump. The clip displayed the former POTUS while highlighting the major symptoms of a condition called Frontotemporal dementia.
Read more: Former POTUS Donald Trump Suffers Massive Setback After Confident Remarks
Navratilova captioned the video as “Interesting…” which left netizens reacting angrily over her cold-heartedness on the sensitive topic. She got into a keyboard battle with other users who felt the tennis great was insensitive.
In the heat of the feud, when one of the users mentioned that Trump was able to play golf comfortably, Navratilova uttered the controversial statement. Here’s the tweet:
Another difference- golf is an activity, tennis is a sport…:)
Apples and oranges. And as heavy as trump is, he can “settle” over the ball pretty easily…— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) April 7, 2020
Needless to say, the tweet caught fire amongst golf fans on Twitter. Netizens asked Navratilova to delete the comment, but she refused to.
Did Navratilova’s tweet infuriate Tiger Woods and co?
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The tennis great’s tweet was widely viewed as an outrage and hurt the sentiments of golf fans. Many believed it tarnished the image of golf and its players, especially world-famous players such as Tiger Woods.
Fans urged professional golfers to make a stand against Navratilova’s comments. However, to avoid the situation from escalating, Woods and others choose to ignore the statement. It was the correct decision, as the silence around the topic quietened the noise from getting murkier.
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However, as learning from the entire episode, is there any index through which different sports can be compared? Television viewerships and fan engagements might present a solution, but will it be enough to term a particular sport as an “activity”? Comment down below.
Watch this story- Jack Nicklaus Supported Tiger Woods After His Honest Assessment of Donald Trump in 2018