PGA Chief to Check Clubs’ Racial Stands

Commissioner Deane Beman said he will take steps to ensure that the racial controversy over the PGA Championship, scheduled next month at the Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., doesn’t spill over to the tour.

The dispute, resulting in protests over the all-white membership of Shoal Creek, began last month when founder Hall Thompson bluntly defended the club’s exclusion of blacks. He later apologized, but civil rights groups continued to protest and major sponsors pulled their TV ads for the tournament.

Beman, boss of the PGA Tour, said Sunday from Turnberry, Scotland, that his organization has no control over the PGA Championship. But he will try to remedy exclusionary policies at PGA Tour stops.

The commissioner said the tour plans to “take a survey of all of the clubs involved in our events. I’m going to be proposing some guidelines that I think will ensure there will be no problems at PGA Tour events.

“We have 123 tournaments, and I would guess there are not more than a dozen with any problems.”

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an Atlanta civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr., delivered a proposal to Shoal Creek officials in a bid to avoid protests during the tournament, the SCLC president said Sunday.

“We need something more than saying ‘Someday, in the by and by, we’ll have black members,’ ” said the Rev. Joseph Lowery.

There was no immediate public response from the club.