A Black-and-White Issue : While Most Sports Have Increasing Minority Participation, Professional Golf’s Is Declining and Its Future Offers Little Hope for Minorities to Make Mark

When he was 2, Frederick Chew III was given a set of miniature golf clubs and plastic balls. The back yard became his driving range, the living room rug his putting green.

Chew, a small, delicate child, whacked each ball until it was lost. That done, he started hitting marbles.

When he was 5, Chew, using a set of mix-and-match clubs bought at the local Goodwill for $3 and cut down at a hardware store, finished last in his first tournament. His mother bought him a trophy anyway, the better to ease his hurt.

But no trophy could compensate for the confusion and pain he felt three years later while attending a tournament at a Northern California country club. An accomplished junior golfer by then, Chew was delivered a piece of freshly sliced watermelon as he stood in the pro shop of the club.

Even then, Chew knew its chilling message: Blacks weren’t welcome. He wasn’t welcome.

Chew, now a sophomore at the University of Arizona and one of only two black Division I golfers, was forever touched by the incident and others like it. He has had a black cat set near him, been denied access to clubhouses and found his photograph mysteriously missing from the wall of champions of a prestigious juniors tournament. When invited to junior golf competitions, it isn’t unusual for Chew to be the only black in the playing field or, for that matter, on the premises.

“Golf is still an old boy’s sport,” he said.

And sadly it appears, a sport still riddled with prejudice, exclusionary policies, hypocrisy, a form of economic bias and, said Chew, infected by “a sense of isolationism.”

The recent controversy at Shoal Creek (or “Soul Creek,” as several touring pros are calling it) exposed the game’s most glaring problem: its steadfast reluctance to adequately address the future of minorities, specifically blacks, in the sport.

Hall Thompson, the Shoal Creek founder who said the club wouldn’t be forced into accepting blacks as members, didn’t invent the debate, as much as he revived it. Thompson merely awakened a sleeping giant, the R-word--racism. Conveniently ignored for years by the PGA Tour, the Professional Golfers’ Assn. of America, the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. and the United States Golf Assn., it is now an issue not easily dismissed.

“(Racism is) still here in force,” said Lee Elder, the black to break the color barrier at the Masters, in 1975. “No doubt about it.”

Rose Elder, Lee’s wife and director of the Elder Sports Management and Instructional Institute in Washington, D.C., puts it bluntly enough: “(Golf) is the last area that they don’t want minorities in.”

For decades, blacks have worked to gain a foothold in a sport whose infrastructure, the evidence suggests, favors affluent whites. For their efforts, noteworthy as they may be, only two blacks--Calvin Peete and Jim Thorpe--are on the regular PGA Tour and only five blacks--Charlie Sifford, Rafe Botts, Charlie Owens, Jim Dent and Elder--are members of the PGA Senior Tour.

Compare those numbers to the findings of a recent National Golf Foundation study. According to the NGF’s 1989 figures, 692,000 golfers, or nearly 3% of the entire U.S. golf population of 24.7 million, are black. Just three years earlier, the number of black golfers was about half that, 384,000.

Also important is the increase of first-time black golfers, from 36,000 in 1986, to 137,000 in 1989.

Yet, noted Elder, there are fewer professional black golfers on the various tours today than there were 20 years ago. And no reinforcements in sight.

“Our (black) youth is a dying breed as far as golf is concerned,” he said. “I see none on the horizon. I don’t think a generation (of blacks) has been lost, but it’s certainly in a position to be lost if we don’t do something to enhance the situation.”

Said Johnny Miller, one of the few players on the tour willing to discuss the issue:

“The future for the black player . . . is growing dimmer. There was a time when you looked at a Charlie Sifford and said, ‘Wow, how did this guy make it? How’d he get to the tour?’ The same goes for guys like Calvin Peete. He’s helped a lot. But who’s the guy who’s going to replace him? It would be nice to pull for someone, but who are you going to pull for? The future doesn’t look that bright for them.”

Golf in itself is color blind. The course is the opponent, nothing more. The score card becomes the great equalizer.

“The wonderful thing about golf is that you can be 15 years old, from Harlem, and if you post four straight 67s, you’re the U.S. Open champion,” Miller said. “The scores do the talking for you.”

In 1967, Lee Trevino, a Mexican-American, came from nowhere to challenge for the U.S. Open title. The following year, he won it.

“Nobody wanted Lee Trevino there,” Miller said. “But because of the scoring system, it’s totally unprejudiced.”

In 1974, when Elder won the Monsanto Open, organizers of the Masters had no choice but to invite him to its own tournament the next year, thus ending a color barrier established in 1934. Again, the power of the score card.

Despite these admirable accomplishments, blacks say they are more concerned about the inequities at the other end of golf’s spectrum. Success on the tour is important, even symbolic, they say, but long-term efforts should be directed at improving minority participation in entry-level golf, in junior golf competition and in Division I college programs.

“We don’t get started early enough in golf,” said Lyman Foster, coach of the South Carolina State team, one of only a few quality black collegiate golf programs in the country. “For most black kids, we don’t have the opportunities.”

Added Jackson State Coach Eddie Payton, whose team recently won the National Minority College Golf Championship in Cleveland: “The young black golfer is systematically excluded from the process where he could gain experience. He’s fighting uphill the rest of his life.”

Economics is an obvious reason why more blacks aren’t involved in the game. Golf requires a financial commitment not always available to those interested in playing.

According to a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, the median income of black families is 40% less than that of white families. Given the assorted costs of the game--greens fees, lessons, golf bag, clubs, shoes, balls--the disparity in income is meaningful.

“For a lot of kids, even white kids, it’s expensive, ridiculously expensive,” Chew said.

Chew and his mother, who moved to Oakland when he was 7, have had to struggle for everything. Betty Chew manages a counseling office for an Oakland nonprofit organization. Her salary is modest, not even enough to establish a line of a credit at a bank.

In years past, when it came time to buy a set of clubs for her son, she would visit a thrift store, have the shafts shortened at a hardware shop and hope for the best. Sometimes Frederick Chew would have to settle for women’s clubs.

On occasion, a local club professional might give Chew a hand-me-down driver or a discarded putter. But to pay, say, nearly $900 for a set of Ping irons would be unthinkable for the Chews.

Miller, who is also chairman of the Utah Junior Golf Assn., said the overall situation is likely to worsen, thus squeezing more minorities out of the game.

“Unless your dad is rich,” he said.

Adrian Stills’ father wasn’t rich, but he did see to it that his son learned the game, whatever the financial hardship. Playing on the municipal courses of Pensacola, Fla., where Elder won that Monsanto Open, Adrian Stills earned a golf scholarship to South Carolina State and played one year on the PGA Tour before losing his card in 1987. He now plays on the Florida mini-tour.

Stills attended the National Minority tournament and came away impressed by the swings of several young black golfers. At the same time, however, he said the odds of a black golfer’s moving up the sport’s ladder are decreased by financial constraints.

“It’s the kind of sport where certain things need to happen in order for a person to participate in it and excel at it,” he said. “You’ve got to have a place to play, specialized instruction, good equipment. Now sure, with Calvin and Lee it’s true that neither one of them has a textbook golf swing, and they never had any of those luxuries I talked about. But there’s no question that those disadvantages are very hard to overcome if you’re not white.”

The need to develop a grass-roots foundation for minority golf has been Eddie Payton’s goal ever since he returned to his alma mater four years ago. Payton, who played in the National Football League and is the brother of running back Walter Payton, accepted the $4,000-a-year Jackson State job when it became apparent the program might be terminated if a coach wasn’t found. Since then, Eddie Payton has developed something of a minority golf powerhouse.

He acknowledged the financial demands of golf, but also said that the game could become more accessible if everyone, including blacks, accepted partial blame for the problem and worked together to solve it.

“You think about the average black kid you see,” Payton said. “He might be 6 years old and wearing designer jeans and a pair of Air Jordans (basketball shoes). The Air Jordans got to cost $100. A set of golf clubs cost $150. Now if we take a kid at 6, invest in some golf clubs and invest some time in him, who knows what could happen?”

Payton even questioned the actions of his brother’s agents, as well as those of Jordan’s. Both Walter Payton and Jordan are avid golfers and, according to Eddie Payton, would make ideal role models for young blacks interested in the game.

“But (the advisers) won’t allow them to take the time to do things for minority golf,” Eddie Payton said.

Also accountable are the various national golf organizations. The PGA Tour contributed $19.8 million to charities in 1989, but spokesperson Sid Wilson said he didn’t know exactly how much of that money was funneled into junior programs, and how many of those junior programs were aimed at minority golfers.

The PGA of America proudly lists six programs designed to introduce or further expose children to golf. But at least two of the programs--the PGA Junior Golf School, which requires a $960 fee, excluding transportation; and Junior Medalist Golf--are cost-prohibitive or too advanced for the first-time minority golfer.

Another program, PGA Outreach, which is supposed to teach the benefits of proper nutrition, physical fitness and golf to youngsters, isn’t in operation. It was scheduled to be implemented in San Diego area public schools this fall, but the program probably won’t be unveiled until 1991.

The remaining three PGA programs, although not designed specifically to reach beginning black golfers, do provide some important assistance. A PGA school development program features visits by local club pros to area public or private schools. Terry McSweeney of the PGA estimated that 1,100 schools and 385,000 children participate annually in the development effort.

The PGA First Swing program distributes beginning golf manuals to 10,000 children a year.

The Clubs for Kids program, with the help of corporate sponsorship, provides 25,000 golf clubs each year to youngsters.

The problem with such programs, said Miller, is that they don’t do enough. He used Clubs for Kids as an example.

“It’s nice,” he said. “But have you ever been to See’s candy? If you go in there, they’ll give you one piece. But if you don’t have any money, I don’t know where that’s going to get you.”

At the moment, not very far. The American Junior Golf Assn., which runs 28 tournaments each year and whose main goal is to help players receive college scholarships, has about 3,000 members, about six of whom are black.

“There really aren’t a lot (of blacks) out there (playing golf),” said the organization’s Dave Linden. “We realize that there is a problem.

Linden said his organization donates about $100,000 annually to various junior golf programs, but that none of it is given, for example, to inner city groups interested in starting a youth golf program.

Hale Irwin, 1990 U.S. Open champion and one of 88 players on the three tours donating 1% of his earnings to junior golf, said more attention has to be given to all children interested in the game, minority or otherwise.

“There has to be a greater effort, not only by the (tour) players, but by the PGA, the USGA to indeed make available more funds for the kids,” he said. “But it’s the chicken-and-the-egg thing: You give them more funds, but where are they going to play?”

Miller suggested partial community funding of junior golf and an agreement with local courses that would provide juniors with tee times and an initial free round of golf.

Lyman Foster has pushed for discounted greens fees at area courses.

Payton said if it were up to him, he would earmark some of the tour’s million-dollar purses for minority golf.

The Elders said inner-city golf programs are a must.

Adrian Stills said aspiring young black professional golfers need corporate sponsorships.

Those are monetary issues. The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, whose Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped force Shoal Creek into inviting its first black member and processing the application of another Birmingham black businessman, said the pivotal problem revolves around the sport’s discriminatory practices. Raise the social consciousness, as well as funds, he said, and you take a step toward solving such things as exclusionary membership policies.

“I think it’s important . . . not to trivialize what happens in these (clubs),” said Lowery, national president of the SCLC. “What America does privately may be a more accurate measure of what we are than our public activity.”

Among the SCLC demands preceding the PGA Championship was a commitment from the PGA of America that it would discuss opportunities for blacks on all levels of the game--recreational, competitive and occupational. According to Lowery, greater representation by blacks is essential.

The PGA agreed to meet with Lowery, but made no promises about possible changes. And although the deal temporarily satisfied the SCLC, Lee Elder said it was an opportunity wasted.

“I really, truthfully think that we sold ourselves a little too short,” Elder said.

Elder wanted to use the planned protests as a way to gain more concessions from the PGA and corporate sponsors for blacks.

For instance, whites hold every key executive position in the PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the LPGA. Of the 49 executives, board of directors, staff directors and communication-tournament staff members listed in the 1990 PGA of America media guide, not one is black.

It’s the same in the two other golf organizations.

Elder’s wish list of reforms is long and ambitious. But if nothing else, a step, however tiny, was taken by golf’s powers after the Shoal Creek embarrassment. Elder simply wanted more.

“I think progress was made for blacks,” he said. “At least now we have a stick to fight with.”