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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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

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Written by

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Sharan Nair

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Sharan Nair is a Senior Golf Writer at EssentiallySports. He constantly covers the ongoing PGA vs LIV Golf tussle as it progresses. With over 600 articles to his name, Sharan masters the sport with his in-depth knowledge and research that is reflected in his meticulous coverage of all the Majors. As an avid fan of Tiger Woods, Sharan firmly believes that Woods' 2019 Masters win was the greatest comeback in sports history. As a sports journalist, he aspires to one day sit down for an interview with the golf great himself. In his free time, Sharan loads up on some good golf reads; his favorite being 'The Glorious World Of Golf' by Peter Dobereiner.

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Manaal Siddiqui

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