Before There Was a Tiger, Peete Held Flame for Many

For African-American kids growing up in the 1980s, there was no shortage of heroes in football and basketball.

When we were on the playground, we never wanted to be ourselves. We were Lynn Swann or Tony Dorsett or Herschel Walker on the football field, Magic Johnson or Dr. J or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the basketball court.

Golf? Not even an option. The closest I came to playing as a kid was miniature golf.

But if I ever even thought about golf, ever caught a tournament on TV, or held a putter and tried to knock a pink ball through a windmill, there was only one choice: Calvin Peete.

Peete can rattle off a list of nine or 10 African American golfers who were on the PGA Tour at the same time he was. But it seemed as though he was the only one who was around on Sundays, when the TV cameras were on and I was watching CBS while waiting for the NBA game to start. He won four events in 1982, two more the next year and then at least one each year from 1984 through 1986, including the Tournament Players Championship in 1985.

“In the ‘80s, I guess I was the one that broke out,” Peete said Wednesday after finishing the pro-am event for the Toshiba Senior Classic at the Newport Beach Country Club.

Peete didn’t open the door for African Americans in golf, but he held it so others could walk through.

Charlie Sifford, who fought to remove the Caucasian-only rule from the PGA’s constitution in 1961, became the first African American granted full PGA Tour membership, in 1964.

Lee Elder became the first African American to compete in the Masters in 1975.

They were like the Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby of golf, and now that Tiger Woods has made it topical to talk about minorities in the sport, they’re constantly mentioned.

Peete seems to have fallen through the cracks.

History remembers the winners and occasionally the runners-up. Everyone after that is an afterthought. You know Neil Armstrong and probably Buzz Aldrin too, but can you name the third man on the moon? (Don’t feel too bad if you can’t; it took a phone call to NASA and three transfers to get the answer: Charles P. Conrad Jr.)

In one way it was good for Peete to follow Elder and Sifford because, “They took all of the bumps and the slurs. It was a cakewalk for me.”

And he did come along after Muhammad Ali, O.J. Simpson and Julius Erving broke new ground for commercial endorsements by black athletes.

But he never caused the sensation that Tiger Woods has, nor did he enjoy the same acclaim.

He thinks part of the reason is that Woods built up a following through his high school and college career by winning three U.S. Amateurs before he turned pro at age 20 in 1996.

Peete was 23 before he even picked up a set of clubs. A friend in upstate New York brought him along to the course one day.

A couple of years later, he was watching Elder compete against Jack Nicklaus in a playoff of the American Golf Classic and drew inspiration.

“I thought if there was one black golfer on the tour, why can’t there be two out there?” Peete said.

Seven years later, as a 32-year-old in 1975, Peete made the PGA Tour, where he went on to win 12 events.

Peete doesn’t recommend anyone considering a professional athletic career to start playing at age 23. But he hadn’t had any reason to play golf before. No one who looked like him did.

“I wasn’t in a golf environment,” Peete said. “If I was in a golf environment, I’m sure I would have picked up clubs and fallen in love with the game.”

Woods practically came out of the womb holding clubs. And when he watched golf on TV as a youngster, he had someone like Peete to look up to.

That’s one of the reasons Peete says, “I feel like I had a big role [in Tiger’s success]. I feel every black golfer had a big role.”

The high-profile stars always get to light the caldron during the Olympics, but I’m sure the people in the small towns along the way can vividly remember the faces of the runners who carried the torch by them--just as I’ll always remember Calvin Peete, who held the flame for all of those years of my youth.

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Toshiba Senior Classic

* What: The Senior PGA Tour’s first California stop of 1998. 54 holes, no cut.

* When: Friday-Sunday. First tee time 8 a.m. Friday; 7:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

* Where: Newport Beach Country Club, 1600 East Pacific Coast Highway

* Last year: Bob Murphy defeated Jay Sigel with an 80-foot putt on the ninth playoff hole.

* TV: ESPN, noon- 2 p.m. Friday, 2:30-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.