''It's not an exaggeration to say that without Charlie, and the other pioneers who fought to play, I may not be playing golf,'' Wood wrote. ''My pop likely wouldn't have picked up the sport, and maybe I wouldn't have either.''
A recent article by ABC news highlighted the adoration that the sports community has for a certain golfer, Charlie Sifford, and how he broke through the racial boundaries of the sport. Way before Tiger Woods became a well-known face of professional golf, or even started playing, Charlie Sifford, now 92, was part of the campaign against racial disparity and racist policies in the sport back in the 1950s. Because of this, he is receiving an award (the Presidential Medal of Freedom)by the White House on November 24th of this year.
This award signifies all of the hard work and horribly rough times that this courageous and passionate man went through to participate in a sport that he loved and had every right to play. Sifford was the very first African American man to receive his PGA card to be able to play golf professionally, and he essentially paved the way for other ethnicities to be able to participate as well as other black golfers. Back in 2004, Sifford was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, and was the first African American to do so. Among other highly prestigious awards and recognitions, "in 2009, the Northern Trust Open created an exemption for a player who represents the advancement of diversity in golf; it is named in honor of Sifford and is referred to as the Charlie Sifford Exemption.
Sifford's career did not, as one may well guess, start out as wonderfully as it has grown to be. Like most golfers, Sifford began as the grunt of the golfing industry...he was the caddy. At thirteen, he carried around bag after bag and absorbed the game as he went. As he grew older, he began competing in segregated tournaments set up specifically for black golfers (which was also not sponsored by the Professional Golf Association or PGA). After working his way to the top ("Sifford won the UGA's biggest event, the National Negro Open, six times, including five successive years from 1952 to 1956"), he then chose to battle the racial barriers that had been in place for years and started to campaign for change in the PGA. It took years for Sifford to break down the walls put in place by white America, and he felt a great deal of anger and resentment towards the people who created the game he loved but had, for so long, prevented him from truly competing because of the color of his skin. A quote from the Fox Sports page says, "He found it galling that the overseers of golf, a game supposedly built on honor, could be so cruel and callous by denying him his right to fully compete. He was 39 when he got his tour card, an age when professional golfers are typically past their prime." It took passion, drive, commitment, and more than a few sacrifices on his part to finally jump over the hurdle and into the Tour, but when he did he took it by storm, winning multiple tournaments and tours.
"People didn't know the name Charlie Sifford, didn't know a black man accomplished what he did," Powell said. "White people didn't know he made sacrifices for the game of golf. Now maybe they will look it up and find out what he did and why he did it."
Charlie Sifford is not the first African American man to go head-to-head against a racial barrier in sports and come out on top as a respected, athlete (and a Hall-of-Famer to boot). Think of names like Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jim Brown, George Dixon, Marshall "Major" Taylor, and Jackie Robinson just to name a few. All of these athletes had to not only compete in incredibly strenuous sports (physically and mentally), but they also had to fight against biased thoughts, racism and a wall of people hoping that they failed along the way. But what each of these people also had in common was their resilience, and the fact that their love for a sport far over-powered anything that could be thrown at them to put them down.
"Barrier-breaking Charlie Sifford to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom." FOX Sports. N.p., 18 Nov. 2014. Web. Nov. 2014.
"Charlie Sifford." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. Nov. 2014.
Press, Mark Gillispie Associated. "Black Golfer Recognized for Breaking Barriers." ABC News. ABC News Network, 18 Nov. 2014. Web. Nov. 2014.
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