EOTO: The Masters, Segregated Country Clubs, and Augusta National Golf Club

EOTO: The Masters, Segregated Country Clubs, and Augusta National Golf Club

(sportscasting.com)

Despite the great success of Martin Luther King Jr. and many other famous civil rights fighters, African-Americans and other minorities still faced racism and prejudice while trying to get into country clubs and golf tournaments. Often seen as a symbol of wealth throughout many communities, country clubs used to be for the wealthy whites looking to show off their status. Until recently, many country clubs refused to let African-Americans into the club under the guise that the club was "invitation only." Those invitations were only sent out to white Americans and never to African-Americans or other minorities. In most cases, before the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, African-Americans that took their grievances against these racist clubs in court lost.

What comes as surprising is that the first two cases of golf course desegregation happened in Northern states. In Delaney v Central Valley Golf Club in New York, and Jones v Attridge at Martha’s Vineyard Country Club (1947). Delaney ended with a ruling that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the golf course was a place of public accommodation. Jones also lost the case in the same way. Eventually, after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, clubs were forced to open their doors to all members and not just white ones. However, in more famous clubs that held events for the PGA, they refused to allow African-Americans to participate in the events held on their grounds.

In a famous news story in 1990, the PGA Championship was being held at the Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. Shoal Creek is an invitation-only private golf club and up until 1990 it had no African-American members. Prior to the 1990 PGA Championship, club founder Hall Thompson prompted widespread outrage when he defiantly declared the club would not be pressured to accept African-American members. Thompson is quoted as saying, "We have the right to associate or not to associate with whomever we choose. The country club is our home and we pick and choose who we want. I think we've said that we don't discriminate in every other area except the blacks."

(skysports.com)

Even Augusta National Golf Club, most famous for hosting The Masters golf tournament, is guilty of not allowing African-Americans into its doors. It wasn't until 1975 that the club extended an invitation to its first Black competitor, Lee Elder. Even after that, it didn't extend an invitation to its first Black member until 1990, and then it finally offered membership to women in 2012.