Charlie Sifford was practicing his putting, this years ago at the Legends of Golf, when he paired Roberto in the Super Seniors. He had the cigar going. I watched for awhile. Then it hit me - there's a painting of Walter Travis deep in study crouched over a putt, with his trademark cigar billowing away. The two, separated by decades and race, among other things, in that same studious pose, could've been separated at birth.
The announcement this week that he'll join the illustrious list of past winners of the Old Tom Morris Award from the greenkeepers (or, as they now prefer to be called, superintendents) sent me to Pete McDaniel's "Uneven Lies," and to Shirley Povich's collection of columns, "All those Mornings..." There's also an interesting exchange of letters in the collection of Bob Jones correspondence that refers to several scathing columns regarding the Masters invitation policy written by the inimitable Jim Murray.
Should any of this interest you, I've penned a short tribute on prodivisiongolf.com. Charlie was 48 when Jones and Clifford Roberts finally revoked their policy, too late for Charlie, as the breaking of baseball's barrier was for numerous exceptional Negro League ballplayers.
You have to wonder how Charlie feels about all these tributes late in life; he was also accorded an honorary degree from the University of St. Andrews as has, to name a few, Nicklaus, Ballesteros and Player. Better late than never, I suppose, but how different things might have been had he been accorded the same opportunities as others. Tiger might not be the only African-American on tour, I think it's fair to say. No?
The computer revolution is over. The computers won.
Tracked: Nov 01, 07:40