November 29, 2021 | By Pete McDaniel, Freelance Writer
His broad smile survived many years of heartbreaking slights, closed doors and untold diminished returns for a golf game deeply respected by his fellow competitors inside the ropes but not so much by the shot-callers inside the boardrooms of corporate America. It certainly outlasted the golfing skills that forced an invitation by the green jackets of Augusta National Golf Club to compete in the 1975 Masters.
That ever-present smile might have been the calling card for Robert Lee Elder as much as his crowning achievement of becoming the first African American invited to play in the Masters, ending decades of racial discrimination by the tournament selection committee. His health declining in recent years, Lee Elder passed on Sunday, November 28. He was 87 years old. He is survived by his wife Sharon.
Long before Lee became famous the Dallas, Tx. native gained notoriety for his partnership with the legendary golf hustler Titanic Thompson and later his dominance on the United Golfers Association Tour, a circuit where Black golfers could compete for prize money having been denied that opportunity on the more lucrative PGA Tour because of an insidious “Caucasian-only’’ clause in the PGA of America’s bylaws which restricted membership in the organization and competition in its events to Caucasian males. Added in 1934, the clause was not removed until 1960. Lee turned professional in 1959 and, in 1966, won 18 of 22 UGA tournaments that he entered. A year later, he won a fourth UGA National Negro Open Championship.
Lee qualified for the PGA Tour in November of 1967 and won the 1974 Monsanto Open in Pensacola, Fl. to earn the Masters invitation. Sadly, the invitation brought out the ugliness of racism in the form of death threats. On April 10, 1975, Lee teed it up in the Masters with Gene Littler to complete an improbable journey from the hard scrabble courses on the UGA to the pristine fairways of the sanctuary of American golf. Although he missed the cut by four strokes, Robert Lee Elder had cemented his legacy in the game.
Lee won four times on the PGA Tour and, in 1979, became the first African American to compete in the Ryder Cup. In addition, he had a successful career on the Champions Tour. He was in the gallery for Tiger Woods’ historic victory in the 1997 Masters, where the two became fast friends. Lee is a member of the National Black Golf Hall of Fame and the African American Golfers Hall of Fame. Among his most recent honors were two scholarships in his name at Paine College in Augusta, Ga.
The scholarships endow one man and one woman on the golf team. The scholarships were close to the heart of a man who preached the value of education for a successful life. They were upstaged only by a simultaneous announcement by Augusta National Golf Club that Lee had been named an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters. This past April he joined fellow legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player on the first tee at Augusta National as they opened play in the first major championship of the year.
“To know that I would be hitting a shot off the first tee alongside the great Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, you have to think about where you’re at and what you’ve accomplished and why you’re there,’’ Lee reportedly said at the time of the announcement. “For the chairman to present me with that opportunity is something I’ll never forget.’’
The golf world isn’t likely to ever forget Lee Elder either.
Pete McDaniel is an award winning sports writer, producer and is the author of “Uneven Lies: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf.” He resides in Ashville, NC.
