Local Golfers Hail a New Champion

Somehow it seemed fitting, in the same week that the nation stands poised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one man breaking the color barrier, that another barrier would come tumbling down.

That, at least, is what many of the old-timers at the clubhouse at Chester L. Washington Golf Course just southeast of Inglewood were saying as they exuberantly celebrated Tiger Woods’ stunning victory at the Masters tournament in Augusta, Ga., on Sunday.

“This is big, this is really big,” said Malcolm Vest, a 42-year-old golfer. “It’s like Jackie Robinson playing in the major leagues. It’s bigger.”

Around the public Los Angeles County golf course, used predominantly by blacks, it was Tiger Woods Day.

Normally, the players would be out on the fairways, but on this bright sunny day the clubhouse was packed. Nobody wanted to miss a milestone in the making, when a young golfer who less than four decades ago would have been prohibited from the Masters course ran away with the title in a record-setting performance.

“No one will have a Tiger by the tail today,” yelled out one golfer viewing the TV in the restaurant/bar and throwing his fist in the air. This was not just Tiger’s day, it was a moment to be shared and savored by the old-timers who remember the days when blacks were limited to caddying for white golfers.

“This is the greatest thing that ever happened to golf,” exclaimed Mike Williams, 50, a golf pro who is an African American. “This was the next step.”

Williams, a self-taught golfer, said Woods’ victory helped ease the pain of the days when he was caddying in the segregated country club courses of Joliet, Ill.

“Tiger has built his own bridge and crossed over a river of prejudice,” said Maggie Hathaway, a pioneer in forcing Los Angeles public golf courses to open their doors to blacks in the early 1960s.

Woods, whose mother is Asian and whose father is African American, is no stranger to the Washington golf course, members said.

“Tiger’s father would ask us to play with him when he was younger, about 16, just to make him tougher,” Williams recalled, adding: “He could beat us then.”

Woods, he said, never forgot them. He has returned to the golf course several times and helped teach young players in the Western States Golf Assn. training program.

To this day, veteran golfers at Washington marvel at Woods’ clean-cut nature.

“You don’t see him wearing earrings or baggy pants, and he speaks with respect,” Bernard Samuels said.

As more than 30 golfers sat intently watching the tourney, it was a day of comparisons.

This was like Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics, like Bob Beamon’s incredible long jump, like Arthur Ashe at Wimbledon and like countless Joe Louis fights.

Golf “was one of the last places to change,” said Chuck Wallace, 73, who began playing golf in 1958 but said he has been hanging around courses since he was 12 in Texas.

“Back then, being a caddy was the best you could do,” he recalled. “This is a real victory.”

It was a time to relish, even a time to joke, as players toasted the champion and talked about what this would mean for the future of golf and about what exactly is Woods’ secret of success.

“Maybe it’s in his tongue,” Vest said, smiling. “He sticks his tongue out like Michael Jordan. Maybe I need to work on my tongue. Maybe that will help my game.”

Meanwhile, in Woods’ hometown of Cypress, televisions in homes, sports bars and golf clubhouses were also tuned to the unfolding rout in Augusta, and the talk was about just how far the Orange County prodigy can go.

“He is just awesome, just unbelievable,” said Cameron Lee, 17, a varsity golfer at Woods’ alma mater, Western High School. “I was here when he set the course record, and he comes back to our school a lot. It’s great for us. He makes me want to play more, to try to get as good as he is.

“Tiger is just the best golfer around.”

And well on his way to becoming the most famous one too.

Cypress Golf Club general manager Norio Fujii gushes about his meetings with Woods and points out that in his native Japan, “it’s just Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, everywhere.”

“He’s global,” Fujii said. “All the high school and college kids who come here want to be like Tiger. He’s already a legend.”

Times staff writer Geoff Boucher contributed to this story.