by Shawn Yonker
By all rights, James Black could be bitter.
Born May 25, 1942, in Charlotte, North Carolina — more than six years before Bill Spiller first began challenging the Caucasians-only clause in the PGA Constitution and 19 years before it would finally be removed — Black insists he’s been blessed.
“I was a blessed child from birth to have a mother and father in my home that was teaching me the core values and way of life,” he said. “I took that type of learning all the way to the PGA golf tour. I had help. I had shoulders to lean on. I had heroes from my home, through the school system and all the way through life. My heroes: my mother, my father, Jackie Robinson, Art Shell, Joe Louis — these people were my heroes.
“I understood the importance of success at an early age. My race of people didn’t have a lot when it come to economics, but they had a lot when it came to love.”
I had the chance to spend a good part of the day Wednesday with James at the annual Art Shell Celebrity Golf Tournament, hosted as a fundraiser byUniversity of Maryland Eastern Shore at Great Hope Golf Course.
At 72, he still has a sweet golf swing, even though he doesn’t play that much any more. Some things your body just doesn’t forget, no matter how uncooperative it becomes with age.
Black has been involved with the event for almost a decade, and on Wednesday was planted at the par-3 No. 7 for the “Beat the Pro” hole. It’s a familiar spot for the golf trailblazer, who was quickly recognized by many of the event’s participants from previous years. He traded pleasantries and barbs and uses the opportunity to drum up some more cash in donations for the school’s PGA Golf Management program.
He usually managed to talk players (and celebrities) out of around $2,000 to $2,500, and this year’s hustling included collecting signatures from those celebrity participants on a single sheet to be auctioned off at the event’s dinner.
Traditionally, he would tee off against each group of hopefuls looking for bragging rights against the former professional. During Wednesday’s round, his plan was to give players the chance to play his shot rather than their own, to speed things up for a round that saw the start delayed because of showers.
But a funny thing happened during the first group at No. 7. He holed out off the tee. It was the 33rd hole-in-one of his career, and he said 12 of those came in competition. So for the rest of the day he left his ball in the hole and everyone carded a one on No. 7 whether they reached in their wallets for additional donations or not.
“That was a damn fine golf shot I hit this morning,” he said later while seeing mixed results off the tee for the rest of the day.
Of course, for him, mixed results meant a bad shot put him a little farther from the flag than he liked as he choked up on a six iron and effortlessly dropped shots at the green 140 yards away most of the day.
“The club head is in nine or more positions in a microsecond, so no human knows where it is at,” he said. “All I’m doing is fundamentals. There is no practice.”
He stopped playing full rounds of golf long ago. He only picks up a club on occasions like this or at clinics.
Sure, he said by Thursday he was going to be pretty sore and he may not even pick up a club again for a couple of months or so, but watching that 72-year-old swing a club, it was easy to see what he may have been like as a professional.
He’s often been referred to as a child prodigy or a self-taught golfer, who burst on the scene as an unknown caddie in 1964, when he shot a 67 to lead the Los Angeles Open after the first round. He was just 21 years old and eventually would finish the event in ninth place.
But his introduction to golf came about a decade earlier, when his family lived near a golf course.
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