There’s the tale of Zeke Hartsfield, a superb competitive
golfer who used to caddie for Bobby Jones at the East Lake Golf Club in
Atlanta and wondered why he wasn’t allowed to play Candler Park, another
course in the Georgia capital. So he decided to tee it up there one
morning in 1939. And when he arrived at the third hole, he was greeted
by a posse of policemen who slapped a pair of handcuffs on Hartsfield
and hauled him off to jail. Because he was black.
And also the story of Charlie Sifford, who carded a 68 to lead
the first round of the 1960 Greater Greensboro Open and then listened to
a man threaten his life over the telephone that night. As Sifford
played that following morning, he heard the same man taunting him,
following him around the course with a group of hecklers who constantly
yelled in his backswing. And you can’t imagine anyone enduring something
that bad.
But then you read about the Phoenix Open in 1952, which was one
of the first times blacks were allowed to compete in a PGA Tour event.
Sifford teed off in the first foursome, with boxer Joe Louis, who was a
top amateur golfer as well, and two other African-Americans. And when he
went to pull the flag out of the first hole, he saw that the cup was
filled with human excrement. Because he, and six other golfers competing
in that event, were black.
You have a hard time with stories like these, but at the same
time you find you cannot stop reading about them. They make you angry
and embarrassed. Sometimes they even make you smile. There was the time,
for example, that Bill Spiller, a top African-American golfer who was
the first to legally challenge the Tour’s despicable and long-standing
Caucasian-only rule, crashed a country club dance after the Bakersfield
Open. Dressed in coat and tie, he walked right to the head table in the
clubhouse, where blacks were not allowed, and asked the wife of the club
president to dance. She obliged, and the two of them took a whirl
around the floor.
There are tales of triumph that make you glow. Like the one of
Pete Brown when he became the first black to win a PGA Tour event (the
1964 Waco Turner Open). Or of Sifford winning the 1969 Los Angeles Open
and setting off a long celebration in his adopted hometown that
culminated in a parade through Watts. Or of Lee Elder becoming the first
black to play in the Masters in 1975. Or of Calvin Peete capturing 11
PGA Tour titles in the 1980s.
But more than anything else, the stories make you sad. Sad for a
guy like Spiller, who was never able to make a consistent living at the
thing he loved most and did best – and that was hit a golf ball –
because he, too, was black.
“The man was a great player and college-educated,” says John H.
Kennedy, a longtime Boston Globe reporter who now teaches writing at
LaSalle University in Philadelphia. “But he had to work as a railroad
porter because he wasn’t able to compete on the PGA Tour. Or even work
as a PGA pro because they wouldn’t let him become a member. He fought
the PGA most of his life. And even on his death bed a dozen years ago,
he still talked about his hatred for the organization. He hated what it
did to him, and to others.”
Kennedy knows a lot about Spiller and Sifford and Elder and
Peete because he has just written a history of African-American golfers.
Titled “A Course of Their Own” (Stark Books), it gives a very readable,
detailed and often harrowing account of blacks and their involvement in
the game. Or should I say lack of involvement, because most of the golf
establishment seemed determined to keep them out of the sport for as
long as possible.
“I don’t think most people understand how long African-Americans
have been playing golf,” Kennedy says. “They had their own tour for a
while, sort of a Negro Leagues of golf, and there were some great
players. I also don’t think many people really understand how hard it
has been for them. They were shot at for playing white-only courses.
They were arrested. Their lives were threatened. And all because they
wanted to play a game.”
“A Course of Their Own” is a compelling read, a tough read, an
enlightening read. And, perhaps most of all, it is an important read for
anyone who knows and loves the game of golf.
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