Some seven years ago, I reviewed a book that had just been released entitled “Uneven Fairways” by Pete McDaniels. The book was about the plight of African-American golfers who couldn”t compete on the PGA tour from the mid-1920s through 1961 because of the color of their skin. Throughout this month, the Golf Channel has been showing a one-hour documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson that is a video version of “Uneven Fairways.”
During my formative years in golf, working as a caddie at a course that hosted a PGA Tour event, I noticed that the black professional was a somewhat common sight. I recently perused my old programs from the Western Opens that were played from 1967 through 1974. I counted close to one dozen names of black professionals in the various fields, including Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder, Pete Brown, Charlie Owens, Albert Green, George Johnson, Odell Trueblood, Jim Dent, Nathaniel Sparks, Jim Thorpe and Rafe Botts.
Charlie Sifford is in the World Golf Hall of Fame and is often acknowledged as the Jackie Robinson of golf. Lee Elder was the first black man to play in the Masters. Pete Brown was the first black golfer to win a tour event, the 1964 Waco Open, and a caddie yard trivia question at Beverly Country Club. Brown was the first golfer to reach the 590-yard, par-5 18th hole in two while playing in the 1970 Western Open, all the while using a persimmon driver and a balata golf ball.
Yet the exploits of Sifford, Elder and Brown along with the future successes of Calvin Peete and Tiger Woods came about because of the efforts of a generation of talented linksters. Sifford played the latter part of his career against the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. However, Bill Spiller seldom got to show his game against the greats of his era such as Sam Snead and Ben Hogan.
There was a contingent of talented black golfers who came out of the caddie yards. However, they had no place to play. The tour was not open to men of color and the PGA of American had a Caucasian-only clause in its bylaws.
This occurred during a time when professional baseball was segregated. Similar to baseball”s Negro Leagues, professional golf also had a black satellite tour called the United Golf Association. The UGA held its first Negro National Open in 1925 and Harry Jackson finished first. The first-place prize for the 72-hole tournament was $25. It was held in Westfield, New Jersey at the Shady Rest Country Club, the first exclusively black country club in America. The inaugural Negro National Amateur was first contested in 1929.
The UGA held its tournaments in metropolitan areas in the East and the Midwest. Most of the tourney sites were municipal courses. Entertainers such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstein sponsored UGA tournaments and often they put the black golfers of that time on their personal payroll. During the 1940s and 1950s, former heavyweight champion Joe Louis became involved as a sponsor for the UGA. He played in tournaments and sponsored up-and-coming talents such as Charlie Sifford. Sifford received a $150 stipend from Louis for every tournament he entered.
In 1952, Joe Louis broke the tour”s color barrier at the San Diego Open … sort of. Louis and four black professionals entered Monday qualifying and got into the field at San Diego Country Club. However, the PGA ruled that Louis could play in the San Diego Open because he was an amateur. They didn”t allow the black pros into the event. Bill Spiller refused to leave the first tee on opening-round Thursday and staged a sit-in on the tee box throughout the day to no avail.
Not much changed and in 1961 Spiller and Ted Rhodes filed suit against the PGA of America for not allowing them to play in Northern California”s Richmond Open. Stanley Mosk, the California attorney general, sided with the black professionals. The PGA Championship was scheduled for Los Angeles in 1962 at Wilshire Country Club, but in a move to circumvent Mosk, the PGA moved their major championship to Aronomick Country Club near Philadelphia. Mosk countered by contacting all the attorney generals in states that hosted PGA events and they unified against the tour”s exclusionary rule. Under intense political pressure, the PGA rescinded its Caucasian-only clause in November of 1961.
Fast-forward to 2009 and we have a black man sitting in the White House. The world”s best golfer is also black. Yet Tiger Woods is the only exempt black member on the PGA Tour. There were many more black members on the tour in 1970. There were a lot more active amateur golfers on regional circuits in those days, too. When I first played in the Chicago Amateur in the late 1960s, perhaps 40 percent of the field was black. Last summer it was about 10.
When I played on the NCGA circuit in the 1980s and 1990s, the top 20 of regional amateur golf included Frank Mazion, Ashley Smith, Clyde Daniels and Jerry Barr. Mazion won multiple San Francisco City titles, Smith won multiple Oakland City Amateurs, and Daniels and Barr turned professional and spent time competing in senior golf circles. While Joseph Bramlett was runner-up in the State Amateur in 2005 and Vincent Johnson has the Sifford exemption into this week”s Los Angeles Open on the PGA Tour, there is less of a black presence on the professional and regional amateur scene that there was some 20-30 years ago.
“Uneven Fairways” is a fascinating documentary airing throughout this month on the Golf Channel. Much has changed in our society since the days when Jim Crow and the PGA of America walked side by side. Yet in some ways, a lot of things haven”t seemed to change much at all.
