Would you like to know why we, as black people, are not excelling in golf on the professional level, like the Asians, Spanish, the Indians, and so forth?….Because we’re leaving everything up to the white man to teache us, to learn, and to be like them—when I don’t see anything wrong with being ourselves.
Why do I hear young blacks in the game of golf, when asked about color use statements such as, “I don’t see color.” If you don’t see color then it makes you a fool. Regardless of the context of the intention, as blacks we do not excel in the game of golf BECAUSE we don’t have the teachers period.
Calvin Pete, Charlie Sifford, Teddy Rhodes, James Black, Pete Brown, and so forth. These men excelled in the toughest of times. WHY were they able to do so? They didn’t have all the top instructors; they figured it out.
No different than Ben Hogan—some maybe even better. Where are the black protégés? Where are their golf books? Where’s their instructional information? Where they able to teach their golf swing knowledge—like Hogan, Nelson, Sneed, Nicklaus. Palmer and others?
You get my point….Tigers problems are so simple to fix but you think somebody, who looks like his daddy (see the color here), will get a chance to even tell him/show him what he’s missing?…I hope so, but I doubt it….that is a conditioned mind and that’s how we’re conditioning the young blacks coming up, and that’s why we are behind. Remember baseball wasn’t real. The records were skewed until blacks became a part of it.
We have to stop acting like being black is a crime. Knowledge is always value. If we want to build-up more African American people in the game of golf, develop more teachers.
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ABOUT CHARLES CALHOUN
Charles Calhoun, AKA the ShadeTree Pro, is a golf and teaching instruction and former contestant on the original series of The Golf Channel’s “The Big Break.” He is author of “The Shadetree Pro” and resides in Orlando, Fla.
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