But Sifford didn’t give up.
By breaking the “white only” clause in golf, Sifford helped open the door for other black golfers, including the most famous black golfer of all time, Woods.
And it’s something Woods recognized when he said in 2015 after Sifford’s death that he might not have been a professional golfer himself had it not been for Sifford.
“I probably wouldn’t have been here (without Sifford). My father would never have picked up the game. Who knows if the clause would still exist or not? But he broke it down.”
Although Sifford was the first black player to golf it, he had someone close to him to lean on.
Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball as a player in 1947, was a friend of Sifford’s and from his own experience gave the golfer some advice before embarking on his journey to make it to the Tour.
“Jackie told him he’s going to have to face a lot of things, not react to a lot of things because once he did it would be harder for him and harder for the people who came after him,” said Charles Sifford. Charlie’s son recalls.
“So he kept a stiff upper lip, bit his tongue and just took what was offered to him because he knew if he screwed up it would be even harder for the next guy to come along.”
Have to move
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1922, Sifford took up golf through the only avenue available to a young black child: caddy.
But growing up in the age of segregation, the opportunities for him to gain experience with courses were not easy to come by.
By the time Sifford was in his thirties, the laws of segregation were gradually being abolished, but golf proved to be slower to move with the times.
“In 1959 you still had the ‘white only’ clause, and it was easy to see how it could survive because golf was played at these private clubs, and they could continue to enforce the rules of segregation,” Nancy Churnin – — author of “Charlie Takes His Shot: How Charlie Sifford Brake the Color Barrier in Golf” — told DailyExpertNews Sport.
“So if you can’t set foot in these private clubs, how are you going to play?”
Sifford’s journey to join the PGA Tour was not a spontaneous decision. It was something he worked for for years.
At the Phoenix Open, Sifford and his all-black foursome – including heavyweight boxer Joe Louis – found feces in the cup from the first hole and had to wait nearly an hour for it to be replaced.
Because Sifford couldn’t show his talent with the best players, he took his talents elsewhere — to great success.
He won the United Golf Association’s National Negro Open six times, taking consecutive victories from 1952 to 1956.
However, his dream was to showcase his abilities on the biggest golf stage with the best in the business, and that meant making some sacrifices, as his son Charles recalls.
“When I was about 10 years old, I realized we lived in Philadelphia and my dad really couldn’t play in many tournaments,” he told DailyExpertNews Sport. “There wasn’t much exposure to golf on the East Coast, so we moved to the West Coast when I was 10. And then he told me that in order to pass or have a chance of succeeding, we had to move west.”
Breaking through
Baseball star Robinson was an inspiration and example of what Sifford hoped to achieve in golf. But Sifford also realized he would need legal help.
After moving to the US West Coast, Sifford befriended California Attorney General Stanley Mosk.
Mosk was Jewish and had experienced discrimination himself. He played golf at Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles, where members of the Jewish community were allowed access while other clubs did not grant them access.
Ali invited his good friend Crystal for a run on a golf course, not realizing that the club did not allow Jewish members.
“(Ali) was furious, ‘I’m a black Muslim and they let me run there. Brother, I’m never going there again,'” Crystal recalls Ali saying.
Sifford’s skill immediately impressed Mosk. And the fact that someone with such a talent could not perform on the biggest stage made him angry.
So Mosk began helping Sifford in his quest to play on the PGA Tour.
As California Attorney General, Mosk was able to bring some political influence into Sifford’s battle. Mosk later served as an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years — the longest tenure in that court’s history.
After years of letters and conversations, Sifford finally earned a PGA Tour player card in 1960 at the age of 39, becoming the first black player to play on the Tour.
A year later, under great pressure, the PGA Tour dropped its “Whites Only” membership clause.
However, Sifford was consistently subjected to racial abuse by white golfers and spectators.
His son Charles also remembers hearing stories of death threats to his father during those years.
“Several times he played in the south (region of the US), he got a few death threats,” Charles explained. “People called him in his hotel room and told him that if he showed up on the golf course, they would kill him.
“He said, ‘Well, you just have to do that, because I’m showing up at the golf course.’ So he was just so determined not to let anyone get in his way and do what he wanted to do and he had that drive in him the more you tried to hold him back the more he would try to succeed. “
Change in the wind
Although he was in his late 30s when he reached the PGA Tour, Sifford was still able to show that he could compete with the best golfers – despite the animosity he encountered both on and off the course.
Churnin recalls reading about hotels that wouldn’t rent him rooms or clubs that still wouldn’t let him eat with other professionals or use the locker room because of his skin color.
However, the 1967 Greater Hartford Open – now the Travelers Championship – in Connecticut proved to be a turning point. “That was the first time the public was on his side,” Churnin said.
And it seemed to make a difference, as Sifford claimed his first PGA Tour win at the event, becoming the first black player to take a PGA Tour win.
Though he didn’t know his father had won because there was no wall-to-wall golf coverage on TV like there is today, Charles recalls a palpable change in Sifford after the momentous win.
“I saw it in the paper and I was really excited for him because it was a lifelong dream to be able to win the PGA Tour. And a lot of pressure was lifted off him. He seemed to be more relaxed knowing he was doing it a time, and there was always a possibility he could do it again.”
Sifford would win the 1969 Los Angeles Open (now The Genesis Invitational) and the 1975 Senior PGA Championship, becoming an original member of the PGA Tour Champions, where he won the Suntree Classic.
In 2004, he became the first black golfer to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Clear the road
President Barack Obama also awarded Sifford the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom “for changing the course of the sport and the country he loved.”
While Charles admits that Sifford was “very disappointed”, there was not a huge influx of black golfers following him, but being the first black player on the PGA Tour was something he was immensely proud of.
Churnin says it wasn’t Sifford’s lack of commitment or dedication that the number of blacks who followed in his wave tracks wasn’t huge.
“We all have different tools at our disposal,” she explained. “Some of us will use words; some of us will use music; some of us will run for office, some of us will be lawyers.
“We all come into this world and our job when we come into this world is to try to make the world a better place – a better, more equal, a more just, a kind, a more loving, a more inclusive place. is a man who used the golf club’s tools to fight for justice, knowing he would not see all the fruits of that struggle in his own life.
“But he used his golf club for fairness, equality, to make the world a better place for others. And he got to see the promised land from where he was, because now that he’d smashed this door, he’d made it a place .” where others could go after him to make their dreams come true on the golf course.”