At the African American Golfer’s Digest, we honor Black golf heroes all year long. However, during February, Black History Month, we are celebrating some of the legends who rose above unimaginable odds to play at the highest levels of the game.
Pete Brown
Brown received his PGA Tour card in 1963.[1] He was not the first African American to obtain his PGA players card; that honor belonged to Charlie Sifford. Brown’s victory at the 1964 Waco Turner Open did, however, earn him a place in history as the first African American to win a PGA event. He played on the PGA Tour for 17 years and posted a second tour win at the 1970 Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational in a playoff over Tony Jacklin. Brown also played on the Senior PGA Tour (now Champions Tour) beginning in 1985. His best finishes were a pair of T-6s in 1985 at the Senior PGA Tour Roundup and the MONY Syracuse Senior Classic. In 2021, Brown was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. He died on May 1, 2015 in Augusta, GA.
Jim Dent
James Lacey Dent was born on May 9, 1939, in golf’s mecca of Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Tournament.) is an American professional golfer. However, as an African American, he wouldn’t have been allowed onto the Augusta National course at the time, except as a caddie. As a youth, Dent caddied both at Augusta National and at Augusta Country Club. He also attended Augusta’s historically Black Paine College. Dent turned pro in 1966. During his regular (under 50) career, he was a Florida PGA Champion three times. Dent had a highly successful career on the Senior PGA Tour (now Champions Tour), where he won 12 tournaments between 1989 and 1998. The professional golfer is widely known for his driving ability and in 1974 was the inaugural winner of the World Long Drive Championship. Dent went on to retain the title in 1975.
Lee Elder
Lee Elder became the first African American golfer to play in the Masters tournament, a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour. Elder was invited to the tournament after he won the 1974 Monsanto Open. One of ten children, Elder was born in Dallas, Texas, on July 14, 1934. By age 9 he was an orphan, losing his father, Charles and Almeta Elder, killed in Germany during World War II, and his mother died three months later. At the age of 12, Elder found himself moving from one ghetto to another before being sent to Los Angeles, California, to live with his aunt. There, he frequently cut classes to work as a caddie, and after two years at Manual Arts High School he dropped out.Notably, he did not play a full round of 18 holes until he was 16-years-old. He worked odd jobs in pro shops and locker rooms, in addition to caddying where he developed his game by watching his clients, and playing when he had the opportunity. Improving on his skills, Elder started hustling on the course, winning money and becoming a popular player. Elder’s career took a big step after playing a match with heavyweight boxer Joe Louis, which led to him becoming Louis’s golf instructor. Elder died on Sunday, in Escondido, Calif. He was 87. The PGA Tour announced the death but provided no other details.
Renee Powell
Renee Powell was the second African American woman ever to play on the US-based LPGA Tour and is currently head professional at her family’s Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio. The course is the only African American designed, built, owned and operated course in America and, is is celebrating 75-years this year and is a historical site on the Ohio Registry. Powell oversees the Clearview Legacy Foundation which preserves Clearview Golf Club. Powell was born on May 4, 1946 and has earned outstanding achievements during his lifetime. Aong the plethera of honors, citations and awards she has received are the World Golf Hall of Fame Charlie Sifford Award, the Donald Ross Award, Ellen Griffin Rolex Award, and the PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award, the highest honor bestowed on PGA members.
Charlie Sifford
Charles Luther Sifford was was the first African American to earn a PGA Tour card and won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the Los Angeles Open in 1969. Sifford started in golf the only way a black kid growing up in North
Carolina could in the 1930s… as a caddie. By 13, he could shoot par golf and earned 60 cents a day of which 50 cents went to his mom and 10 cents was kept to buy stogies. They became his trademark on the course. He also won the United Golf Association’s National Negro Open six times, and the PGA Seniors’ Championship in 1975. Born on June 2, 1922 in Charlotte, NC, Sifford became the first African American to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame (2004). He died on February 3, 2015 in Cleveland, OH.
