This week is a golf Major week in the world of golf. And with Tiger Woods back in form that is a big world. The best players in the world are meeting in Bethpage, Long Island, New York, to compete for the PGA Championship on the famed Bethpage Black course.
Tiger Woods, considered by many experts as the best player in the history of the game, is the biggest thing in golf; everyone in golf benefits from Tiger’s presence in tournaments. Just as at the Masters Tournament, which Tiger won last month, there is substantial speculation and wagering about him winning.
Now that Tiger is back and the golf world is once again on its proper axis, I call attention to the passing of another golf era—the continuing disappearance of African American male golfers from PGA tournament play, even from the PGA Senior Tour.
For years I have been correcting casual observers who thought no blacks played on the PGA Tour before Tiger. After the PGA was forced to integrate in 1961, African Americans began joining the PGA Tour, and by the end of the 1960s there were usually some eight to ten black players at each tour stop — players such as Charlie Sifford, Rafe Botts, Pete Brown, Jim Dent, Lee Elder, George Johnson, Charlie Owens, Curtis Sifford, Nate Starks, and Chuck Thorpe. In the 1970s as many as a dozen blacks played the Tour.
Some of these players won tournaments. Charlie Sifford, the “Jackie Robinson” of professional golf, won in 1967 and 1969. Pete Brown won in 1963 and 1970. Lee Elder won in 1974, 1976, and twice in 1978. Jim Thorpe, Chuck Thorpe’s younger brother, won twice in 1985 and once in 1986. Calvin Peete, the most successful black golfer before Tiger Woods, had 12 victories, including four in 1982, and 11 during a four-year peak which culminated in his win at the 1985 Players Championship. Golfer Tom Watson called Peete the “Machine,” because of Peete’s deadly accuracy.
Several of these African American golfers moved from the regular Tour to the Senior Tour when they came of age–50. Some were more successful on that tour. For example, Jim Dent won 12 times, Jim Thorpe won 13 times, including a major, Lee Elder won eight times, and Walter Morgan won three times. But these players have moved on in age and off the golf tour, with Thorpe’s last victory coming in 2007.
On another note, we should congratulate Lee Elder, who in 1975 was the first African American permitted to play in the Masters golf tournament. This year he becomes another first as he is the first African American to receive the prestigious Bob Jones Award from the United States Golf Association—their highest honor. Elder faced a lot of racism trying to ply his trade. For example, when he first played in the Masters he received so many death threats he rented two houses and moved between them during the week. As he played in golf tournaments in the 1970s fans sometimes yelled racial taunts and kicked his golf ball. Elder complained about these problems, he complained about the PGA permitting four players to play in South Africa under the apartheid regime, and he complained about the PGA Tour associating with private golf clubs that did not allow African American members.
As the old saying goes, “In the long run right will out.” Elder is being rewarded for standing against racial discrimination.
