January 7, 2021 | BY AAGD STAFF
A day short, due to Wednesday’s riot at the White House, World Golf Hall of Fame golfers Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player, along with the late Olympian Babe Didrikson Zaharias, have been presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the White House announced Thursday.
President Donald Trump presented the award that is one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. Usually the public ceremony is open to the media, however, Thursday’s event did not provide access to media. The president had no public events listed on his schedule following the previous day’s mayhem at the Capitol where pro-Trump supporters stormed the building, forcing it into lockdown.
Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, released a statement on the awards, which for Sorenstam and Player had been previously announced last March.
Both are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, yet the awardees faced harsh public criticism from golf fans and citizens across the world who believe the award should have been rejected by Player and Sorenstam.
“Hypocrisy and American racial double standards were on full display on January 6. While the world witnessed Black Lives Matter protests being repeatedly suppressed in the summer and fall of 2020, on January 6, law enforcement did the bare minimum to prevent a takeover of the Capitol,” said Kelley Pierre, Director of Circulation and Consumer Engagement at African American Golfer’s Digest in a blog. “The events of January 6 were unique because they were a threat to our homeland security and the United States Capitol. At the core of this was President Donald J. Trump.”
Player, who is South African, won 24 PGA Tour events and 118 international tournaments. “I am truly disappointed in him (Gary Player) because he grew up in Apartheid South Africa and should know better. Gary Player once accepted apartheid rule and then later denounced it. Gary Player knew first hand the horrors of discrimination and the importance of white allies in opposition to oppression,” said Pierre. In 2019 Tiger Woods received the medal from President Donald Trump, and he too received negative public comments in accepting the medal.
Player’s own son was against his father accepting the medal and shared his feelings in a tweet:
Sorenstam, who is Swedish, completed her LPGA career with 72 tournament victories and was the dominant player of her era, earning The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award three consecutive years beginning in 2003.
The posthumous honor for Zaharias was announced Thursday. She was an all-around athlete nicknamed “Babe,” after Babe Ruth. She was not only an Olympic track and field champion, but excelled in baseball, basketball, and golf.
Zaharias was still a top-ranked professional golfer when she died from cancer in 1956.
