(Burneyville, OK, April 22, 2024) PGA golfer Jim Dent would eventually win more than $9 million playing professional golf.
But as a PGA Tour rookie in 1970, Dent won the friendship of Pete Brown, the first African American golfer to claim victory in a PGA-sanctioned event, at the 1964 Waco Turner Open.
It is the brotherhood with Brown, Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder and other Black golfers who preceded him on Tour that will be on Dent’s mind May 1 at the Pete Brown Diamond Jubilee at Falconhead Resort, Burneyville, OK.
The residents of Falconhead Resort are inviting the world of golf to help honor Brown on the 60th anniversary of his historic win on the forerunner Turner’s Lodge course. Dent will be the keynote speaker at 12:30 on the 18th green.
The 84-year-old Dent was mentored by Brown during his first six months on Tour. “He showed me the ropes and how to get around,” Dent said.
“Just to walk behind him and watch him act and what he did and how he did it. He was so nice you couldn’t help but like a guy like that,” Dent told Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle .
In 2004, Pete underwent a series of strokes that forced his retirement from Madden Golf Course in Dayton, OH where he and his wife Margaret had closed out their careers.
Dent offered the Browns his second home in Evans, GA, outside Augusta. “You do what you can to help your friend and I was happy that he and his wife could be down here with me for as long as they wanted,” Dent told Bob Denny of the PGA News .
Sadly, Brown, Sifford — the first African American to be issued a Tour card from the PGA, in 1961 — and Calvin Peete, who won 12 Tour victories, more than any Black golfer until Tiger Woods’ emergence — all died in 2015.
“I first met Pete in the late 1960s,” Dent recalled. “During the week of the Masters, Black golfers would get together and play somewhere in Georgia, Virginia, or North Carolina. One year we were in Newport News. Pete won our tournament, Charlie Sifford was second, and I was third.”
“I had read about Pete’s big victory in the 1964 Waco Turner Open, but he told me about it in detail, how he had to get up and down on the final hole to win outright and avoid a playoff. It was great to get the first championship and his first win on Tour.”
“Pete was great man, a great friend, and the nicest person you would ever meet.”
Other speakers on the program are Jay Upchurch, Norman, the last Oklahoma golf writer to interview Brown; Ramona Harriet, research historian and author of “A Missing Link in History, the Journey of African Americans in Golf;” Peter May longtime sportswriter with Boston Globe, NY Times, and ESPN, and author of the 2024 book, “Changing the Course — How Charlie Sifford and Stanley Mosk Integrated the PGA;” Howard Williams, founder of the African American Sports Museum; Sandy Cross, PGA of America; and Dr. Michael Cooper, USGA.
At a refreshment hour at 1:30 in the Country Club, the authors will hold a book-signing.
At 3 p.m. American Nation Bank in southern Oklahoma will sponsor the Pete Brown-Waco Turner Tribute 72nd Hole Scoring Contest.
The field is limited to the first 50 men and women who register on May 1. Registration begins at 11 a.m. in the Pro Shop. The entry fee is $10.
Contestants will vie to make par 3 (or better) on Hole 18, like Pete Brown did 60 years ago. The winner will be awarded $500 and the Dayton Foundation Pete Brown Scholarship will receive $500.
Family members of the late Pete Brown, including his wife Margaret will be on hand, along with James Ridley of Tampa, FL, coordinator of the Pete Brown scholarship. American Nation Bank will be represented by Jesse Cross, chairman/CEO and Kyle McLemore.
Men will play at 232 yards, the distance of the uphill par 3 hole in the 1964 Waco Turner Open. Women will play from 190 yards, the same as the LPGA pros who played in the LPGA Tour events at Turner’s Lodge in the 1950s.
To add authenticity, right-handed players will hit with the 1950s Wilson golf clubs of the late Waco Turner, the sponsor of the Waco Turner Open. Lefties will hit with their own clubs, but 10 yards farther back. The winner will be decided by a putt-off.
Falconhead Resort is 12 miles west of Marietta (Exit 15 on I35) on Oklahoma Highway 32.
