March is Women’s History Month following Black History Month in February. Many individuals and events are being celebrated—or they should be.
Here I call attention to a little-known story—the story of The Wake-Robin Golf Club. This is an African American women’s golf club that this year is celebrating its 84th year. Yes, that is correct—a black women’s golf club founded in Washington, DC, in 1937.
This is a club without real estate, as such golf organizations are called. The founders named the club after the purplish wildflower with gold stamens that sprout in early spring.
Also not widely known is that African American men were involved in golf in the United States since the beginning of organized courses and facilities in the 1880s and 1890s. They played a significant role in the development of golf in those early days.
Examples: In the 1890s, John Shippen was the first American born golf teaching professional (at Shinnecock Hills, the elite course out on Long Island). Several other blacks followed as club professionals close thereon. Dentist Dr. George Grant invented the golf tee in 1898. Just a few years later, Joe Bartholomew of New Orleans was such a good golfer that he was pitted against some of the top white professionals in the country. And later, under contract, he built singlehandedly the major course in the New Orleans area. Needless to say, as a black man, Bartholomew could not play regularly on the golf course he built.
In 1916, white professional golfers cut off Shippen, Bartholomew, and other black golf professionals by establishing the PGA, the Professional Golfers Association, and limiting membership to Caucasians.
As the country was establishing Jim Crow, white organizations were routinely excluding blacks from participation in various professional sports, including those in which they had been prominent. To counter this, African Americans established alternative institutions. In golf, it was the UGA, the United Golfers Association, in 1926.
Black women and men participated in the UGA, which had professional and amateur divisions. By 1930 there were enough women participants to have a women’s division of the UGA.
Robert Ball was one of the top black players when the UGA was organized in 1926, and one of the leading black women players was his wife. Cleo Ball. The Balls of Chicago swept the national UGA championships in 1941 as Robert won the men’s title for the third time and Cleo won the women’s title.
Naturally, just as black men formed clubs around the country, black women did also. The Wake Robin Club was one of the first, if not the first black women’s clubs.
Immediately, the club was involved in the civil rights issue of having a place to play.
By the Wake Robin Club’s founding in 1937, some 16 significant African American-owned golf courses had been built. However, some did not survive the depression, and the closest one of these courses for them to play was in Laurel, Maryland, 20 miles outside of DC. They wanted a closer place.
The Wake Robin Golf club was a leading proponent of the development of Langston Golf Course in DC, which opened in 1938 after years of pressure by the black community. Langston became one of the most important black golf courses in America as many African American politicians, celebrities, and leading social figures visited the course.
The women of Wake Robin participated in the civil rights protests to force the federal government to integrate all of the public courses in DC. The protests succeeded first at East Potomac Park Golf Course, which had previously limited blacks to playing only two days per week.
The Wake Robin Golf Club’s mission is “to foster and perpetuate women’s interest in golf and encourage women in Washington, DC, and vicinity to become golfers.” To counter a decline in participation, they renew their mission each year by recruiting new members.
And this year, they are holding their annual scholarship benefit tournament.
