(CNN)When Charlie Sifford tried to play with the white golfers, he was told no.
When he politely inquired after attending black-only events, he was met with racial abuse and even death threats.
But Sifford didn’t give up.
With the support of California Attorney General Stanley Mosk and trailblazer Jackie Robinson at his side, Sifford became the first black player to play on the PGA Tour in 1959.
And if you visit the Tiger Woods exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, you’ll see a photo of Sifford.
By breaking the “Caucasians only” clause in golf, Sifford helped open the door to other black golfers, including the most famous black golfer of all time, Woods.
And Woods recognized that when he said in 2015, after Sifford’s death, that if it weren’t for Sifford, he might not have become a professional golfer himself.
“He’s like the grandpa I never had,” Woods said after a practice round ahead of the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open in Torrey Pines, the day after Sifford’s death. “It’s been a long night and I’m sure it’s going to be a long few days. He fought and what he did, the courage for him to keep going and to be out here and play.
“I probably wouldn’t be here (without Sifford). My father would never have picked up the game. Who knows if the clause still exists or not? But he broke them.”
While Sifford was the first black player to make it in golf, he had someone close by to lean on.
Robinson, who broke the color barrier as a Major League Baseball player in 1947, was a friend of Sifford’s and gave the golfer some first-hand advice before heading out on the tour.
“Jackie told him there were a lot of things he had to face up to and a lot of things he didn’t have to react to because once he did that, it would be harder for him and harder for the people coming behind him,” said Charles Sifford, Charlie’s son , recalls.
“So he kept a stiff upper lip, bit his tongue and just dealt with what was presented to him because he knew if he screwed up it was going to be even harder for the next guy to come by.”
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have to move
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1922, Sifford was introduced to golf through the only avenue available to a young black boy—the caddy.
But he wanted to play the game – he could hit a par 18 hole by the age of 13 – not carry someone else’s bag.
However, having grown up in the age of segregation, gaining experience in courses was not easy for him.
He finally began playing professionally in 1948, but – because of the so-called “Caucasian only” clause that prevented black players from playing with their white counterparts – Sifford had to settle for playing only in black competitions.
By the time Sifford was in his thirties, segregation laws were slowly being abandoned, but golf was proving slower with the times.
“In 1959 the ‘Caucasians only’ clause was still in place and it was easy to see how it could survive because golf was played in these private clubs and they could continue to enforce segregation rules,” said Nancy Churnin – author of “Charlie Takes His Shot: How Charlie Sifford Broke the Color Barrier in Golf” – told CNN Sport.
“So if you can’t set foot in these private clubs, how are you going to play?”
Sifford’s trip to join the PGA Tour was not a spontaneous decision. It was something he had worked for for years.
His first attempt at promotion to the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) tour in 1952 was met with intense and racial pressure.
At the Phoenix Open, Sifford and his all-black quartet – which included heavyweight boxer Joe Louis – found excrement in the first hole cup and had to wait nearly an hour for it to be replaced.
Unable to prove his skills with the best players, Sifford took his talents elsewhere – with great success.
He won the United Golf Association’s National Negro Open six times, securing consecutive victories from 1952–56.
His dream, however, was to showcase his skills on golf’s biggest 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 that we lived in Philadelphia and my dad really didn’t get to play a lot of tournaments,” he told CNN Sport. “There wasn’t much golf on the East Coast, so we moved to the West Coast when I was 10. And that’s when he told me that in order to succeed, or have any chance of succeeding, we had to move west.”
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breakthrough
Baseball star Robinson was an inspirational figure and an example of what Sifford wanted to achieve in golf. But Sifford also realized he would need legal help.
After moving to the US West Coast, Sifford became friends with California Attorney General Stanley Mosk.
Mosk was a Jew and had experienced discrimination first-hand. He played golf at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles, which allowed members of the Jewish community when other clubs wouldn’t allow them entry.
Award-winning actor Billy Crystal, in his eulogy for Muhammad Ali at the great boxer’s funeral in 2016, recalled an incident that highlighted the closed-door policy in golf.
Ali invited his good friend Crystal to run on a golf course, unaware that the club did not allow Jewish members.
“(Ali) was outraged: ‘I am a black Muslim and they let me walk there. Little bro, I’ll never walk there again,'” Crystal recalled as Ali said.
Sifford’s skill immediately impressed Mosk. And the fact that someone with such skills was not able to perform on the biggest stage angered him.
So Mosk set about helping Sifford in his quest to play on the PGA Tour.
As California Attorney General, Mosk was able to politically influence Sifford’s fight. Mosk later served as an associate justice on 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, after considerable pressure, the PGA Tour dropped its “Caucasians-only” membership clause.
However, Sifford was constantly subjected to racial slurs from white golfers and spectators.
His son Charles also recalls hearing stories of death threats against his father during those years.
“A number of times while he was playing in the South[region of the United States]he’d had a couple of death threats,” Charles explained. “People called him in his hotel room and told him 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 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 stop him, the more he tried to succeed.”
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change in the wind
Despite being in his late 30s when he made the PGA Tour, Sifford was still able to show he could compete against the best golfers – despite the hostilities he encountered both on and off the golf course.
Churnin recalls reading about hotels that wouldn’t rent him rooms or clubs that still wouldn’t let him eat with other pros or use the locker rooms because of the color of his skin.
However, the 1967 Greater Hartford Open – now the Travelers Championship – in Connecticut proved to be a turning point. “It was the first time the audience was on his side,” Churnin said.
And it seemed to make a difference, as Sifford clinched his first PGA Tour win at the event, becoming the first black player to earn a PGA Tour win.
Although he didn’t know his father had won due to the lack of TV golf coverage like it does today, Charles recalls a noticeable change in Sifford following the momentous win.
“I saw it in the paper and I was really excited for him because it was a lifetime dream to be able to win on the PGA Tour. And it took a lot of pressure off him. He seemed more relaxed when he knew he did it once, and there was always a chance he could do it again.”
Sifford won the 1969 Los Angeles Open (now The Genesis Invitational) and the 1975 Senior PGA Championship and became a founding 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.
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pave the way
President Barack Obama also awarded Sifford the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom “for changing the course of the sport and the country he loved.”
Although Charles admits Sifford was “very disappointed” he wasn’t followed by a large influx of black golfers, and being the first black player on the PGA Tour was something he was very proud of.
Churnin says it wasn’t because of a lack of effort or commitment from Sifford that the number of blacks following in his golfing footsteps wasn’t as great.
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“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 legal scholars.
“We all come into this world and our job as we come into this world is to try to make the world a better place — a better, fairer, fairer, kinder, more loving, more inclusive place… This is a man who used the tool of the golf club to fight for justice, and he knew he would not see the full fruits of that fight in his lifetime.
“But he used his golf club for fairness, equality, to make the world a better place for others. And he could see the promised land from where he was because now that he smashed down that door, he had made it a place where others could walk behind him and pursue their dreams on the golf course.”
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