While the actor Joe Pesci was mouthing obscenities at will during the movie 'Goodfellas' on television last Sunday, we're told that American TV viewers were positively shocked by a few isolated expletives from Tiger Woods. And the fact that the world number one happened to be playing in a tournament at the time means he is virtually certain to be fined.

Woods' outburst occurred on Doral's ninth hole in the final round of the CA Championship. It seems that an ill-timed snap by a photographer on the player's backswing led to a bogey. Whereupon an incensed Woods made a response which contained the threat: "The next time a photographer shoots a f***ing picture, I'm going to break his f***ing neck."

The use of so-called rifle-mics, which are designed to enhance our enjoyment of televised golf, makes this sort of thing inevitable. In my view, they are excessively intrusive, though European Tour member Gary Murphy accepts them as part of his craft.

"We're in the media eye anyway, so we're expected to behave accordingly," he said. "It's not an issue. But what I found interesting about last Sunday was that after a run of tournaments in which he was superhuman, Tiger's outburst made him one of us once more. Which is nice.

"Continental players probably get away with more than the rest of us by swearing in their own language," added Murphy, "but overall, golfers are nowhere near as bad as footballers. And the mics are almost a necessary evil. Without TV coverage we don't have sponsorship and we don't have tournament golf. So it's part and parcel of life on tour.

"Mind you, there's no guidance when you receive your card as to what you can and cannot do regarding language. An exception is the Canadian Tour where I got a card in 1997. There, you had to attend a compulsory eight-hour information seminar the following day, otherwise you didn't get your card. Which I thought was great."

By its very nature, golf tends to produce ill-tempered outbursts which are rarely expressed in Enid Blyton language such as drat, darn or golly. Indeed this was acknowledged even by respected men of the cloth, as Henry Longhurst discovered when he played in a fourball with the vicar of Northampton and "a gentleman whose complexion indicated either good living or shortness of temper, or both."

We're informed that the vicar and his partner were in contention until the 17th where, in attempting a short pitch over a greenside bunker, he with the complexion lifted his head and duffed the ball feebly into the sand.

As Longhurst recalled: "The man raised his niblick to heaven. '*******!', he cried, and '*******!' and '*******!' Then, pulling himself up with a jerk, he began to make embarrassed apologies. The vicar's reply remains in my mind as though it were yesterday. 'Brother,' he said, slowly and gently. 'The provocation was ample.'" Sadly, Longhurst gave no details of what one imagines must have been wonderfully colourful expletives.

The question of language in golf was also explored beautifully in a book called 'Uncommon Law' by British member of parliament and satirist A P Herbert and published in 1936. It consisted of a collection of 66 unusual legal cases, one of which concerned the crucial question as to whether a golfer was, in fact, a gentleman.

Herbert's creation, the decidedly fishy Albert Haddock, was a tireless litigant who, under the Profane Oaths Act of 1745, was charged with swearing and cursing on the Mullion golf course in Cornwall. The Act specified a fine of one shilling to labourers, soldiers or seamen for each profanity; two shillings "for every person under the degree of gentleman, and five shillings for every person of or above the degree of gentleman."

Haddock claimed he was not a gentleman when he played golf, because it created circumstances that "will break down the normal restraints of a civilized citizen and inflame powerful passions, paralleling its possibilities to the discovery of another man molesting one's wife." Naturally, an informed and understanding judge agreed with him.

Interestingly, the only time I can recall being shocked by foul language in golf was when the same Mr Woods made his well-documented verbal explosion on the 18th tee at Pebble Beech during the 2000 US Open. Perhaps my reaction had something to do with the time of day, given that the expletives came on breakfast-time television, when he was completing a third round which had been delayed by fog.

At the time, US Tour spokesman Bob Combs wouldn't reveal whether Woods was fined for the remark, stating only that all disciplinary action is handled directly between the Tour and the player. Which is only right.

"You're never going to catch a golfer swearing to a TV camera," observed popular pundit Ian Baker-Finch. "He'd be kicked off the tour." However, the 1991 Open champion added: "But in the heat of the moment, when the guy is playing for his family's education and he hits a bad shot, it can happen. These guys are human, too. It has become the way of the world. If I had said THAT as a boy growing up in Australia, I'd have had my mouth washed out with soap. Now you hear teenage girls swearing on the street."

And really, don't we get a bit hot under the collar over verbal trifles? As David Feherty observed: "I believe that language is only foul when there is an attempt to be foul behind it."

I remember the 1989 Open Championship at Royal Troon where, on the morning after one of the practice days, the Sun reported that spectators had been scandalised by the foul language overheard on the course from reigning US Open champion Curtis Strange. Indeed the righteous tabloid was so concerned by the American's behaviour, that the story carried the memorable headline, 'Cursin' Curtis'.

At the same championship, Feherty, who was eventually tied sixth behind Mark Calcavecchia, was interviewed after a second round of 67. And among his gems was "I saw hope running towards the horizon with his arse on fire," from a Woody Allen monologue. Later, one of the British red-tops asked Feherty if he could use another word instead of "arse", which would be offensive to their readers.

It seems that US Tour commissioner Tim Finchem takes a serious view of outbursts like last Sunday's. But while not condoning it, would it not be more appropriate, as Gary Murphy suggested, to point the finger of censure at the unthinking photographer who caused the problem in the first place?