July 11, 2020
Inspiring is the word for honorary starters as Jock and Fred begat Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead, who begat Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus. (In 1983, Ken Venturi stood in for Lord Byron.)
Was there a more poignant image on the first tee than an empty lawn chair draped with Arnie’s green jacket at the 2017 Masters? “The almost unbearable sadness we all feel at the passing of Arnold Palmer,” said then-chairman Billy Payne, “is surpassed only by the love and affection we feel for him in our hearts.” Wiping away the tears, Gary and Jack teed off, proving once and for all: Even gods cry.
I expect to be inspired again this year, when the Masters is played off-kilter in November. I have no inside information, none at all, operating only in the belief that the Augusta National Golf Club does the right thing. In my imagination, I’m rushing to the plantation clubhouse on a crisp autumnal morning to see Jack and Gary on the first tee with Lee Elder, 86, celebrating the 45th anniversary of breaking the color barrier at the 1975 Masters and doing it again as the first Black honorary starter.
He’s not a past champion, you say? Neither were Hutchison, McLeod or Venturi. But what’s Elder’s connection? He won the Bob Jones Award for sportsmanship last year—reflecting the virtue of Augusta’s founder is enough for me.
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YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: “If Jackie Robinson is heralded for breaking the color barrier in baseball and being the first Black man to play in the World Series, then Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder should be jointly held in similar regard,” says Wendell Haskins, a leader in Black golf who championed this idea when he was director of diversity for the PGA of America.
Read more at GolfDigest.com
