Special to the AmNews
Occasionally, while searching sometimes vainly through the annals of Black history, a remarkable profile falls right into your lap. No need to pore over timeworn books, newspapers and magazines or surf the Internet for useful profiles for the Classroom column.
The passing of pioneering golfer Charlie Sifford on Feb. 3 is just such a moment, particularly when there is no obituary in our publication. He was 92 and lived in Cleveland, Ohio. This profile can stand for a “twofer,” a veritable entry we hope comes in under par as Sifford did so many times during his days on the links.
Like so many golfers, especially African-American hopefuls, Sifford began as a caddy, and when given an opportunity, he put his advice into action by defeating players he lugged clubs for. He was born June 2, 1922, in Charlotte, N.C., and at a very early age, his love for the game was evident.
Deemed the “Jackie Robinson” of golf, Sifford established his prowess by winning a slew of Black or Negro Open Championships before challenging the formidable, white-only Professional Golf Association, which barred Blacks with the same ferocity as the other U.S. professional sports leagues.
In 1961, Sifford became the first African-American to compete on the PGA tour. Denied entry to white-only tournaments, he perfected his skills teaching and coaching such Black celebrities as vocalist Billy Eckstine, Joe Louis and “Sugar” Ray Robinson, all of whom were eventual backers of his dream to break golf’s color barrier.
Some of the tension and racism he encountered is vividly retold in his autobiography, “Just Let Me Play” (1992). “There were times when they were only a few feet away from me,” he recalled of the rabid fans, “screaming at the top of their lungs. I had to watch them out of the corner of my eye, even as I was lining up a shot. At the same time, I wondered what it would feel like to take a swing, just one sweet swing, at one of their heads with a 3-iron. That would shut them up quick, wouldn’t it? But I couldn’t do that.
“I knew that if I blew up, it would be over,” he continued. “I couldn’t solve anything by violence. It would just ensure that all Blacks, beginning with me, would be permanently barred from the tour. I just had to learn to handle it, because for all I knew, this would happen wherever I went to play golf in the South. They rattled me for sure, but I survived it.”
And well he did, and along with encouragement from his celebrity friends, Sifford was empowered by the Civil Rights Movement that, by the early 1960s, was reaching a crescendo of protest and breakthroughs. The crack in the wall occurred in 1948, when Bill Spiller and Teddy Rhodes demonstrated their abilities with scores that qualified them for entry in the PGA, but their entry was blocked by PGA officials. As is often the case when Blacks who are capable of entry knock on a Jim Crow door, rules were changed to bar them, and the PGA immediately conceived the “open invitational” concept to retain the white purity.
But the maneuver wasn’t enough to stop Sifford’s determination and skill when, in 1957, at the Long Beach Open, he became the first Black to defeat white players in a PGA co-sponsored tournament. Now the die was cast, and four years later, with the help of legal counsel and the California attorney general, he hurdled the final obstacle. Even so, there were additional hurdles to overcome, but his persistence paid off in 1967, when he won the Greater Harford Open, the first Black to win a fully sanctioned PGA event.
Two years later, he was back in California for the Los Angeles Open. His amazing victory was captured by Sports Illustrated: “Charlie Sifford, Negro, 46, father of two, his own golf teacher, a short little man with a mustache, was a curious hero in a country-club sport. A Black lady journalist raced onto the green and kissed him. Don Newcombe, the ex-Dodger pitcher, ran out and grabbed his hand. And huge, happy swarms of Charlie’s fans, all colors, surrounded him, tearfully delirious. Black guys who can’t play the game whooped, and white guys who’ve never seen a country club whooped.”
This was just the beginning of years of whooping and hollering for Sifford that included his entry into hundreds of tournaments, earning him well over a half million dollars—a sum that expanded appreciably during his tenure on the senior circuit.
Less important to Sifford than the amount of money was his role in paving the way for other African-American golfers, none more prominent than Lee Elder, the first Black to play in the Masters in 1975, and Calvin Peete, who won a dozen or so PGA tournaments.
Sifford never participated in the Masters, but he was masterly on the course. Few commanded the back-nine with his efficiency and confidence. Earl Woods, Tiger’s father, noted his trailblazing efforts, saying, “He took the punishment … he was the first one.”
In 2004, he was inducted into the World Golf of Hall of Fame, again another first for an African-American. Five years later, a diversity measure was named in his honor—an exemption that allowed a player to enter the Northern Trust Open, formerly the Los Angeles Open, where portions of his reputation was made.
Ten years later, President Barack Obama presented Sifford with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, for a man who despite the hostility that often seethed around him on the course, remained civil and unflappable.
