The Passing of a Trailblazer
Lee Elder, the first Black to play in the Masters, passes.
The PGA TOUR is in the Bahamas for Tiger Wood's Hero World Challenge, an unofficial event on the schedule. Hopefully, we'll have some Tiger Woods sightings. It's been great to see him hit shots on social media, on his Golf Digest interview, and his presser on Monday.
The golf world lost a trailblazer and a great man with the passing of Lee Elder on Suday. I think it is fair to say that we may not have had Tiger Woods if it weren't for Lee Elder. Elder befriended Tiger's dad and became a mentor to Tiger. Everyone remembers Tiger's hug with his dad as he exited the 18th green after winning his first Masters in 1997 and just as memorable was the hug that Tiger gave Elder as he entered the press room.
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We're going to call this week's quiz "Three Balls and a Fake". Scroll down to play.
This week's vintage ad is from 1975 and how you can choose which Titleist is going to give you the most distance. Look at all that copy!
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Lee Elder Keeps Cliff Roberts Waiting
Lee Elder walked off the 18th green at Augusta National after completing his first round of the 1975 Masters, the first Black to play in the tournament. What he saw stayed with him for the rest of his life. A greeting line, made up mostly of Black caddies and clubhouse workers from Augusta National, stretched from the back of the 18th green to the clubhouse.
“I tell you my heart was beating so bad,” Elder recalled in a 2015 interview with Tod Leonard of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “I was so appreciative. I cared so much about how they felt.”
He qualified for a Masters invitation after he won the 1974 Monsanto Open in Pensacola, Florida. He defeated Peter Oosterhuison on the fourth hole of a sudden death playoff. After making the winning putt, Jack Tuthill, the PGA Tour’s tournament director, whisked Elder to a waiting police car.
“What’s going on, Jack?” Elder asked.
Tuthill explained that death threats had been called in all morning long and he thought it would be safer to move the trophy presentation indoors and transport Elder there in the police car.
Indeed, the Masters invitation from Augusta came (not a slam dunk proposition). But the invitation from Chairman Roberts of Augusta wasn’t immediately accepted.
Roberts called the clubhouse while Elder was addressing the press. Elder told the clubhouse attendant, who informed him of the call from Roberts, that he would call him back. Eventually, the two men connected, and Roberts said he was “delighted” to extend a Masters invitation. Elder later said that he wanted to give Roberts a taste of his own medicine as he thought it was wrong that Charles Sifford did not receive an invite to the Masters after winning the 1967 Greater Greensboro Open.
“I just thought that was wrong and that I would hesitate a little before accepting,” Elder told Golf Digest in September of 2019.
Elder replied to Roberts extending the invitation, “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t say for sure right now. It really depends on what I’m involved in.” Savoring the moment, Elder waited a couple of days before finally accepting the invitation.
Just as Hank Aaron was able to stand on the shoulders of Jackie Robinson, Lee Elder was able to stand on the shoulders of Charles Sifford. And just as Aaron had to endure the off-season between the end of the 1973 season and the start of the 1974 campaign, Elder had to endure 51 weeks between his Monsanto victory and the start of the 1975 Masters.
After coming up one home run short of Babe Ruth’s record at the end of the 1973 season, Aaron received death threats from those who did not want to see him surpass a national hero during the entire offseason. Elder also had to endure death threats and other racist behavior including fans running out from the ropes to kick his ball from the fairway into the rough. He received phone calls at the clubhouse before he played, and fans would tell him that he should be carrying a golf bag instead of hitting shots.
It got so bad that while at the Masters he had to rent two houses and alternate his time between the two to keep him and his family safe. During Masters week, at a dining establishment in Augusta, Elder was refused service by the proprietors. President Julius Scott, of Paine College, a historically Black college in Augusta, heard about the incident and informed Elder that his meals the remainder of that week would be prepared by the university’s chef.
“It was a tough, hard road that I knew I had to go through,” Elder said. “The derogatory things they said to me were so devastating. For a while, it played on me. I thought a lot about it. But the only thing I could do was go along, carrying myself along, and hope that it would die.”
As could be expected, due to all of the attention that Lee Elder received that week in Augusta, he found it difficult to ignore the distractions and did not score well. He followed a first round 2-over-par 74 with a 78 in the second round and missed the cut by four strokes. He would not be around to see one of the most famous Sundays in Masters history as Jack Nicklaus held off Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller to win his fifth green jacket.
But what Lee Elder did that week will live on forever. Not only did he break down the color barrier at Augusta National by becoming the first Black to play in the Masters, but he also provided the shoulders for Tiger Woods to stand on. Lee Elder will be missed, golf lost a great man.
Lee Elder and Tiger Woods
Check out the bonus fact below for more about the breaking of the color barrier in 1975.
The playlist this week is all about songs from 1975. Listen HERE.
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Larry Baush
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Tour Backspin Quiz | Three Balls and a Fake
Which of these golf balls are/were real and which one is faker than a vanity handicap?
A.) Omega
B.) Pierce
C.) Penfold
D.) Zippo SDX
Answer below
Bonus Story
Lee Elder and Frank Robinson traveled a parallel path. Both were born in Texas, went to high school in California and then moved East. Elder to play golf and Robinson to play baseball. But it was a week in early April 1975, that they shared similar milestones.
Elder became the first Black to play in the Masters while Robinson became the first Black to manage a Major League baseball team when he became the player-manager of the Cleveland Indians.
As the item in the April 21, 1975, edition of Sports Illustrated put it in a small item in the Scorecard section of the magazine:
Both are glad that last week, when they respectively became the first Blacks to play in the Masters golf tournament and manage a big-league baseball team, is finally history. Their relief is widely shared.
Check It Out
We're introducing a new feature where we recommend things you should check out. So check it out!
Here's a great article from a writer that we've worked with before; Nick Lozito. He's got a great article about the 1969 Alameda Open, a tournament born from the fight between the tour players and the PGA of America. The story has quite the turn (spoiler alert: police intervened). Check it out HERE.
Blind Shot
Click for something fun. 👀
Quiz Answer: The Pierce ball is as fake as your buddy's single digit handicap.
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