This post is a bit long but it is an easy read. Just a little info about Charlie Sifford for those on the thread who want some bakground info on a potential player on March 30th.
Golf owes Charlie Sifford a
great deal
By Ron Sirak
Associated Press Golf Writer
A young boy at the B.C. Open in Endicott, N.Y.,
pushed his way to the gallery ropes and called to Tiger
Woods. When he got a high-five, he yelled, "Anyone
want to touch the hand that touched Tiger Woods?"
In Tulsa, Okla., at the Tour Championship, kids on a
class trip had only one thing on their minds. "Where's
Tiger?" they asked almost as one voice.
A preteen girl at the Byron Nelson Classic near Dallas
clutched her stuffed Tiger doll and shuffled shyly
toward Woods, mumbling her request for an autograph
without mustering the courage to lift her gaze from the
ground.
These scenes, repeated in endless variations
everywhere Woods has played, were startling because
of the age of the fans and one other reason: All of the
youngsters were white.
In a way few have managed, Tiger Woods has
transcended race, lifting his celebrity status above his
ethnic background.
It is quite possible that for the boy in Endicott, the class
in Tulsa and the girl in Dallas, Woods was the first
black person they had met. There was in their young
eyes an unconditional acceptance that was not
wrapped in a caveat like "... for a black person."
It was not always that way. Ask Charlie Sifford, the
first black on tour after the whites-only clause was
lifted in 1961.
When Sifford played, the white fans straining to get
near the ropes were shouting the ugliest of words to
remind him of his race.
"It was a shame, it was a damn shame," Sifford said
Monday from his home near Houston.
Sifford was 39 before blacks were allowed on the
tour, but for the next 10 years he kept his playing card
by finishing in the top 60 on the money list.
He won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 -- the first
victory by a black tour member -- and the Los
Angeles Open in 1969. He will be honored for that win
this weekend at what is now the Nissan Open.
Still, the good memories for Sifford, who will be 76 in
June, come with scars so deep not even time can heal
them.
"It was in the early '60s," Sifford said in a slow, careful
manner that conjured up images of the deliberate way
he puffed on a cigar while he played.
"It took them 16 holes to lock up 24 white guys in
Greensboro that were following me, yelling things," he
said, well aware of the irony that it was just down the
road in Charlotte, N.C., that he learned the game as a
13-year-old caddie.
"It's just a damn shame that in this country when a
black man stands up for his rights you'll be penalized,"
Sifford said.
Sifford knows from experience that racial acceptance
can be fleeting. He views the emergence of Woods
with concern.
"There ain't nobody out there can play but Tiger,"
Sifford said, noting the lack of blacks in tournament
golf.
"The game is going backward, not forward. I had eight
or nine out there when I was playing," he said, ticking
off names like Ted Rhodes, Bill Spiller, Pete Brown,
Lee Elder, Jim Dent, Calvin Peete and Jim Thorpe.
There are 269 players on the PGA Tour. Three are
black: Woods, who is part Thai; Vijay Singh, who is
from Fiji and is Indian; and Thorpe.
Where is the lost generation of black players between
the 49-year-old Thorpe and the 22-year-old Woods?
Who will join Woods in knocking down the racial
barriers to the game?
"There ain't but so much Tiger can do," Sifford said.
"I'm proud of him. But he has a tough job ahead of
him. There are a lot of white people out there who
don't want him to succeed."
Sifford never got to play in the Masters because when
he won a tour event qualifying rules were manipulated
to exclude him. Eventually, Lee Elder broke the color
barrier at Augusta National in 1975.
"If it hadn't had been for Charlie Sifford, Tiger Woods
never would have played in that Masters," Sifford said
about Woods' record victory last year.
"But I told them that one day a black man would come
along and play the game as well as anyone."
Sifford did not have the ability of Woods. But he was
first. And he was never afraid to speak his mind.
"Tell them," he said, "I meant everything I said."
For that, the game owes Charlie Sifford greatly.
c The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. |
