Welcome again, associates, to one more version of Historical past’s Mysteries. Every now and then, MyGolfSpy takes a glance again in time on the tools, individuals and occasions that mattered and made a distinction.
This has been an thrilling week in golf, with Nelly Korda and Scottie Scheffler battling it out to see who one of the best golfer on the earth is. However with all of the hubbub, an important anniversary got here and went this previous Sunday, and it’s an occasion that ought to at all times be remembered.
On April 21, 1974, Lee Elder received the Monsanto Open in Pensacola, Fla. That victory was the primary in Elder’s PGA Tour profession. Extra importantly, the win earned Elder a spot within the 1975 Masters, making him the primary African American to play at Augusta.
For those who’re a scholar of historical past, notably of the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, that’s no small milestone.
Historical past’s Mysteries: Who Was Lee Elder?
Lee Elder was born in Dallas in 1934, the youngest of eight youngsters. When he was seven, his father was killed in World Warfare II and his mom died three months later. Elder’s first job in golf was gathering stray balls at a neighborhood muni (he was too small to hold a bag) and he wouldn’t play his first full 18-hole spherical till he was 16.
Elder honed his sport and have become a little bit of a hustler. He in the end joined up with Alvin Thomas, higher often known as the legendary golf hustler Titanic Thompson. Thompson made a dwelling hustling cash from wealthy nation membership members across the nation and Elder would play a job in his favourite hustle. After beating a member soundly, Thompson would berate the participant, saying his caddie might beat him. The participant, incensed, would take Thompson up on that problem. The caddie, in fact, was Elder.
After a stint within the military, Elder joined the United Golf Affiliation Tour in 1961. It was a tour for black golfers as a result of the PGA Tour nonetheless formally held its “Caucasians solely” clause. Elder was dominant on that tour, at one stretch profitable 18 of twenty-two tournaments. The prize cash, nonetheless, wasn’t nice, usually within the $500 vary.
The PGA Tour formally lifted its shade barrier within the early ‘60s however it took Elder till 1967 to earn sufficient cash to attend Q-Faculty. He completed ninth out of 122 golfers, incomes his Tour card for 1968. His rookie season noticed him place 40th on the cash record, highlighted by dropping on the fifth playoff gap to Jack Nicklaus on the American Golf Traditional at Firestone on nationwide tv.
The 1974 Monsanto Open
By April of 1974, Elder had 5 second-place finishes in his profession, together with one other playoff loss in Hartford to Lee Trevino. However he had but to win on the PGA Tour.
Elder’s earlier experiences on the Monsanto Open weren’t nice. As a rookie in 1968, Elder and different black gamers on Tour had been compelled to alter garments within the car parking zone. Members on the Pensacola Nation Membership refused to permit Blacks of their clubhouse.
However the ’74 Monsanto can be fairly totally different. Elder went 67-69-71 within the first three rounds. That put him within the closing pairing, two pictures behind chief Peter Oosterhuis. Elder would tie for the lead twice throughout the closing spherical however, by 16, Oosterhuis was again up by two.
Elder birdied 17 to drag inside one. However he badly pulled his tee shot into the timber on 18. Newspaper accounts say Elder then “hooked a miraculous strategy across the timber,” to inside 5 toes of the opening. Whereas Oosterhuis scrambled for his par, Elder drained his birdie putt to power a playoff.
Oosterhuis missed a three-footer on the primary playoff gap that will have received the occasion. He additionally missed a four-foot birdie putt on the second gap. After routine pars, Oosterhuis positioned his strategy on the fourth playoff gap to inside 20 toes. Elder adopted, enjoying his strategy two toes nearer, on the identical line.
Oosterhuis missed however Elder drained his 18-footer for the win.
Officers instantly hustled Elder into the clubhouse for the trophy presentation. The ceremony was moved inside after police obtained discover of demise threats in opposition to Elder earlier within the day.
It was the identical clubhouse Elder was barred from getting into six years earlier.
The Masters Invitation
The observe is customary now: win a PGA Tour occasion and also you’re mechanically invited to the Masters.
That coverage, nonetheless, hasn’t at all times been official. African-American gamers Pete Brown and Charlie Sifford had been a number of winners on the PGA Tour within the ‘60s however had been by no means invited. Within the early ‘70s, a gaggle of Congressmen lobbied Masters chairman Clifford Roberts to ask an African-American to play. Roberts, nonetheless, remained unfazed.
“We’re somewhat stunned in addition to flattered that 18 Congressmen ought to take day out to assist us function a golf match,” Roberts is quoted as saying on the time. “We really feel sure somebody has misinformed the distinguished lawmakers as a result of there may be not and by no means has been participant discrimination, refined or in any other case.”
This was the identical Clifford Roberts who, in 1933, reportedly declared that “all of the golfers might be white and all of the caddies might be black,” for so long as he might affect the state of affairs.
However by 1974, the Masters had modified its insurance policies to increase an invite to any Tour winner. Roberts contacted Elder after the Monsanto win to formally invite him however Elder informed Roberts he’d have to consider it.
“I simply needed to provide Cliff a style of his personal drugs,” he’s quoted as saying.
The 1975 Masters
Jack Nicklaus received the ’75 Masters in an exhilarating final-round showdown with Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf. Elder, who was 40 on the time, missed the reduce after capturing 74 on Thursday and 78 on Friday.
“Once I arrived on the entrance gate and drove down Magnolia Lane, that’s when the shakes started,” Elder informed the BBC Information in 2015. “What if I hook or slice into the woods? I simply collected my ideas as I approached the primary drive and simply type of swung the membership.”
The week at Augusta was each thrilling and making an attempt. Elder obtained demise threats and hate mail main as much as the Masters, to the purpose the place he rented two totally different homes so nobody might make sure the place he was staying. Two bodyguards had been with him always and his meals had been ready by the kitchen at Paine College, a traditionally Black school in Augusta.
The Augusta patrons, nonetheless, had been a special story.
“Each inexperienced I walked up on, the applause was great. I imply, everybody shouted ‘Go Lee! Good luck Lee!’”
After ending his first spherical, each workers member at Augusta greeted Elder on the trail resulting in the clubhouse, simply to say thanks.
And since life does come full circle, 22 years later Elder was on the 18th inexperienced to greet that yr’s champion, Tiger Woods.
The Elder Legacy
“I didn’t notice how vital (enjoying the Masters) was on the time,” Elder informed Golf Digest years later. “I don’t assume I knew what an enormous deal it was.”
From what we’ve discovered from individuals who knew Elder, that’s not stunning. Michael Cooper, a Senior Regional Golf Engagement Advisor for the USGA, was a teen when he met Elder in the summertime of 1974 on the Pipe O’ Peace golf course on Chicago’s South Facet.
“The pinnacle professional was a gentleman named Bobby Milton, who had performed for the Harlem Globetrotters,” Cooper tells MyGolfSpy. “Bobby arrange a Lee Elder Day. It was an enormous celebration and Lee performed a nine-hole exhibition. I received to play with him and Bobby.”
Cooper says he knew the tales of what Elder went by however provides Lee by no means spoke of it.
“By no means as soon as can I recall him speaking about all of the dangerous stuff and racism. He talked about all the great individuals he met and talked about Gary Participant fairly a bit. Participant invited him to play in South Africa throughout the apartheid period.”
Jim Beatty, government editor of African American Golfer’s Digest, met Elder at a match in St. Louis.
“Once I discovered he was going to be a visitor, I received giddy. He was fairly reserved, given all that he completed. However I didn’t see in him nor did I detect any facets of bitterness, which was encouraging as a result of he actually had motive to be. He was only a very form individual.”
African American Golfer’s Digest writer Debert Prepare dinner met Elder on the 2005 PGA Present. “Lee was at all times form and gracious, beholding of a constructive disposition. His outlook was at all times that of hope and that issues would get higher.”
Historical past’s Mysteries: Elder Reminiscences
“I can’t recall the yr however I used to be on the Masters and there’s an enormous memento store close to the doorway,” recollects Beatty. “Lee and his spouse had been simply standing there. He was older and never essentially recognizable, however I knew who he was. So, as individuals are coming in, particularly Black individuals, I’m going to them and saying, ‘Hey, have you learnt who that’s? That’s Lee Elder. Please go shake his hand.’ I used to be simply happy and humbled to be his largest cheerleader”
And the hate mail, demise threats and car parking zone indignities in Pensacola? Beatty says that was simply the truth of the instances.
“That’s a really powerful a part of American historical past. However it’s what African American golfers – Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, Bud Spiller and Lee – needed to endure. It was par for the course.
“However they dealt with it in such a magnanimous method. I hope individuals usually, however actually African Individuals, can perceive, develop and be taught from it.”
“For us, his win reaffirms the notion that prejudice, racism and discrimination don’t replicate functionality and expertise,” says Greenwood Golf CEO Chris Phrase. “It’s vital for us to proceed to pursue our desires and objectives to honor his legacy.”
In 2019, Elder was awarded the USGA’s Bob Jones Award for distinguished sportsmanship in golf. In 2021, a visibly ailing Elder joined Jack Nicklaus and Gary Participant as a ceremonial starter on the Masters. Membership Chairman Fred Ridley introduced Augusta would set up males’s and girls’s golf scholarships at Paine College in Lee’s title, and would endow the ladies’s golf program.
Elder would die simply seven months later, on the age of 87.
“I consider individuals are good at coronary heart,” Elder mentioned in 2019. “For those who deal with individuals the way you’d wish to be handled, they’ll come round finally.”
The submit Historical past’s Mysteries: Lee Elder and the 1974 Monsanto Open appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
