Wrestling with Race at the PGA
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John Paul Newport (January 18, 2008)
At a dinner Wednesday sponsored by African-American Golfer’s Digest magazine, a club pro from Detroit named Butch Rhodes estimated that he is one of only about 40 blacks who are full members of the PGA of America (that is, not including apprentices).
A PGA of America official later put the figure at around 131, including apprentices, but still – from an organization with more than 27,000 members, that’s not a good showing. Especially given that there are something on the order of 2 million African-American golfers in the U.S.
I was surprised, but not shocked, by that number. For someone like myself — I’m white, but have lived for the last 25 years in racially diverse communities –- it has always been unnerving to walk the aisles of the PGA Show and see so few black faces. In fact, of all the large gatherings of people I can recall being in, the PGA Show (with 45,000 attendees this year) is consistently the whitest.
The PGA is not unaware of this imbalance. It established a diversity pavilion at this year’s show (albeit not in a particularly prominent spot) and on Wednesday swore in an African-American, former basketball standout and successful restaurateur Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman, to its board of directors.
Race has been a particularly hot topic in the golf world in the last few weeks, following Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman’s off-the-cuff remark, while jocularly sparring with co-anchor Nick Faldo, suggesting that the best way for lesser Tour pros to deal with Tiger Woods might be to “lynch him in a back alley.” The network suspend Ms. Tilghman for two weeks and she apologized
both to Mr. Woods and viewers. But the Rev. Al Sharpton, among others, have called for her to be fired, and the contretemps lives on.
Golfweek magazine, stacks of which are available for free on the exhibition floor, deepened the controversy this week by featuring a large noose on its cover. And there was more fallout today: The company that publishes Golfweek, Turnstile Publishing, announced Friday that it was replacing the magazine’s editor, Dave Seanor.
I happened to be at the African-American Golfer’s Digest booth yesterday when a
senior editor for the magazine, Ed Wanambwa, plopped down several copies of the
Golfweek issue and said, “Have you all seen this?” It created quite a stir among the mostly African-American people in the area.
Mr. Wanambwa told me that he knew Ms. Tilghman personally and didn’t believe that in her heart she meant any harm. But he did think the Golfweek cover was offensive.
“That noose is a very powerful image in our community,” he said. He also said that his sense of his magazine’s readers was that many thought Ms. Tilghman should be fired and were angry that Mr. Woods accepted her apology so readily (Mr. Woods’ agent called the matter a “complete non-issue” and said “case closed”) and that, in general, he didn’t stand up more for African-American
causes.
A few minutes later and approximately 30 yards away, I asked Rance Crain, chairman of Turnstile Publishing, for his take on the matter. He acknowledged the cover had caused “a stink” — PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem was quoted as calling the cover “outrageous and irresponsible” — but said he was proud of it. “It’s the best way we could have represented that story, unless we wanted to be namby-pamby about it. People here may not like being reminded of it, but race is an issue this industry needs to address.”
About This Blog
The PGA Merchandise Show is the world’s largest gathering for selling golf and gear. John Paul Newport and Tim Carroll report from Orlando.
