Best to Hit Them With a Club : PGA shouldn’t be held at Shoal Creek, which won’t admit blacks

The latest reminder that racial bigotry is not quite a thing of the past is the ugly but necessary controversy that now surrounds the otherwise prestigious Professional Golfers’ Assn. Championship tournament planned for next week in Birmingham, Ala.

It’s scheduled to take place at a country club that refuses membership to African-Americans.

The PGA’s patronage of clubs that have no black members is hardly new, nor are protests against the tour organizers. But this year, several corporations rightly withdrew more than $2-million worth of tournament sponsorship because of Shoal Creek’s racist membership guidelines. Honda, IBM, Toyota, Lincoln-Mercury and Anheuser-Busch all canceled advertising time they were to purchase from ABC, which is televising the tournament. Delta Airlines scaled back its participation, and PGA champion Lee Trevino has threatened to withdraw from the contest. Southern religious leaders say they will picket the championship unless the club starts to admit blacks.

Shoal Creek founder Hall W. Thompson said the club will not change its policies because of public pressure. “We’ve said we don’t discriminate in every other area except the blacks,” Thompson has said, in a pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible. Club officials later said they would be “considering” blacks for membership.

The exodus of corporate sponsorship and its counterpart advertising drives home a lesson about racism better than does negative publicity: The PGA is considering making open membership one of the criteria used in selecting future tournament sites. It should, with great haste. Even restricted clubs may be shamed into making some small progress. Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club, site of the Master’s tournament, says it will invite its first black member to join sometime this year.

For logistic reasons it may be too late to cancel this weekend’s PGA tournament. But let it be the last at a restricted club.