This might be the only time Tiger Woods ever felt he couldn’t win.

A few weeks ago, he was just sitting around, doing what all 13-time major championship owners do in their spare time, taking his yacht for a spin or whatever, when a TV announcer suffered a severe brain cramp and flippantly mentioned how the tour players might as well “lynch” Woods in a back alley to keep him from ruling golf.

Then, this week, a leading golf magazine, attempting to seize upon the so-called furor caused by the comment, slapped a noose on its cover, trying to make a point.

So what’s an icon to do?

Stand on the soapbox, scream about injustice louder and better than anyone else and therefore reduce Al Sharpton into the Phil Mickelson of activists?

Or just say nothing, hope it will pass and take the yacht for another spin?

Either way, society will challenge him harder than Vijay Singh. If he goes all Sharpton over the “lynch” comment made Jan. 4 by Golf Channel commentator Kelly Tilghman, a friend who was trying to be funny (she failed) instead of sinister, or the noose cover by Golfweek magazine, which was trying to be creative, a portion of society will call him hypersensitive.

If he shrugs and tries to move on, another portion will call him a racial sellout.

And if he does it his way, in private, which is how he operates, a portion will have a beef with that, too.

When it comes to dealing with a society that wants him to be all things to all people, Woods is discovering that catching unwanted attention is a whole lot easier than catching Jack Nicklaus.

Nobody has heard directly from Woods on these “issues” lately, but my hunch is he just wants to play golf, if anyone will let him.

Woods’ people did call the Tilghman remark a “poor choice of words” but also a “complete non-issue” with no “ill intent” and considered the “case closed.” Well, let’s examine the remark and the response a bit closer.

Stretching her slim broadcasting talent to its limits, Tilghman was trying her hand at humor instead of sticking to what she does best: smile and talk golf. It was about the worst thing anyone could say, on air or anywhere else, about a person with black blood in his veins. It was not only unfortunate, it was unfathomable, especially in this day and age, how someone on that professional level could be so . . . stupid.

The word “lynch,” which has no positive value, was lurking dormant in her internal dictionary before it suddenly surfaced without warning, and she needs to find out why. However: Tilghman likely wasn’t trying to be malicious.

Tilghman got what she deserved, and after this latest (but not last) sensitivity training course, maybe we can all move on.

At least that’s what we should’ve done, except Golfweek desperate for a cover during a slow news week, put a picture of a hanging noose.

Tilghman didn’t have time to think before she put her 5-iron in her mouth. Golfweek, on the other hand, thought long and hard, according to its editor, to come up with the perfect image to go with its Tilghman story. If so, then everyone who thought a noose was OK should be fired for being incompetent and insensitive.

The creative geniuses at Golfweek should’ve taken their cue from Tiger, whose reaction probably was best, all things considered. He declared the case closed and left a no-win situation, well, hanging.