Notice: This piece was written by Rhonda Glenn and initially ran on usga.org on October 28, 2012. Brown died on Might 1, 2015, on the age of 80.
Except you’re Pete Brown, it’s only some hundred miles from Jackson, Miss., to Augusta, Ga. Brown, nevertheless, traveled a tough street, one which wound by way of Southern California and Ohio, a street plagued by hazards and triumph, dangerous reminiscences and good mates, till lastly, he’s again in his beloved South.
Pete Brown, 77, holds a singular place in golf historical past – one which solely he has crammed but one commensurate with the accomplishments of the extra well-known Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder. A full technology in the past, Pete Brown was the primary black participant to win on the PGA Tour.
Amongst black golfers, poverty and post-segregation slights are acquainted tales. Brown, like others, overcame them. It was polio, the crippling scourge that plagued so many so way back, that the majority threatened Brown’s future and his life.
Like Sifford, Jim Dent and different male golfers of coloration, Brown got here out of the caddie ranks with a self-taught golf swing. At 11, he noticed that caddieing provided an even bigger payday. He made $6 a day for 36 holes at a public course. Like a variety of black youngsters, the caddies used discarded golf equipment to hit balls on vacant farmland. In Mississippi, Brown was the perfect of the lot. By the age of 17, each time he performed a full-length course he broke 70.
That’s when a light-weight went on. Perhaps he may make a dwelling enjoying golf.
He labored on his sport, made a number of mates, and traveled to tournaments. In Houston, he completed second to Invoice Spiller within the Lone Star Open, a match for black gamers. Sifford urged him to remain beginner. “He stated I wanted expertise, however I needed to win slightly cash so I may maintain making an attempt to play,” Brown stated. “That’s the one cause I turned professional.”
Brown went to Detroit to get in on the betting motion. Randolph Wallace, a rich black businessman, provided to ship him to school. It was 1956 when he suffered a tragic setback. Polio struck Pete Brown and he would spend greater than a 12 months in a hospital mattress.
“You’d higher discover one other sport,” Brown’s physician instructed him. “I don’t suppose you’ll have the ability to stroll once more.”
Largely ignored, Brown lay in mattress for 4 months. Someday, Sifford introduced heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis, who beloved golf, to go to. Brown was asleep, so the champ left an autographed image.
Louis wrote on the photograph, “Hurry up and get out of that mattress so we are able to kick your butt. Joe Louis.”
Medical personnel paid nearer consideration after that. Brown was lastly recognized and coverings started. Every week, he obtained three injections in his again, the ache so intense it took 5 individuals to carry him down. Earlier than one injection, he tried to leap by way of the window. Dragging his withered physique throughout the room, he collapsed on the ground.
These reminiscences are so disagreeable that Brown winces as he talks.
In 1957, a form of miracle occurred: Pete Brown moved his toes. His therapists started stretching Pete’s legs and he quickly was in a position to make a number of tentative steps. Inside weeks, he was on the hospital garden making painful swings with a golf membership. Late in 1957, he left the hospital. He had been in mattress for greater than a 12 months.
Pete went to a driving vary and commenced hitting apply balls. Between pictures, he rested in a chair.
“I couldn’t hit the ball,” he remembered. “I missed it so much. However I needed to be in Houston in June.”
To Brown, Houston was the large apple. A match there was carried out by the United Golfers Affiliation, the group that hosted occasions for black golfers at a time when most tournaments allowed solely whites to play.
Brown made it to Houston, however in fact didn’t play effectively. That he performed in any respect was miraculous. Over the following months he slowly labored to get his sport in form. It was an excellent day when he lastly gained the Lone Star Open. He would go on to win it 4 instances. He captured the UGA’s Nationwide Negro Open 4 instances. In 1961, he gained the Michigan Open and his grueling keep within the hospital appeared a very long time in the past.
Now, different threats intruded.
“I wasn’t in rivalry till the final spherical,” Brown stated. “It was actual windy and chilly. The final spherical I shot a 67 and type of lapped the sector to make a playoff. All these individuals have been on the primary tee and I used to be so pleased to shoot the 67. We teed off and have been on the inexperienced when some children down the road they yelled [a racial insult] and stated, ‘Hey! What you doing in there?’ “
So what did Pete Brown do, with all these individuals there? He laughed.
“As a result of it was no huge deal,” he stated. “Everyone began laughing then. You virtually need to be good they usually’ll go away you alone. When you problem them, then you definitely’re in hassle. I realized that again in Mississippi.”
On the second playoff gap, a par 5, Brown hit the inexperienced in two pictures and two-putted for a successful birdie.
“I used to be the toast of the city throughout Detroit,” he stated.
That 12 months, the PGA Tour rescinded its Caucasian-only clause. Sifford already had his Gamers Card. Brown would earn his card in 1963 however black golfers performed the Tour within the shadows. In most cities, they couldn’t keep in motels. They did as soon as, in Lafayette, La.
“The Heberts, Jay and Lionel, ran the match they usually had the sheriff’s division watch us all evening to ensure we didn’t have any issues,” Pete stated. “It was a wierd feeling.”
In match clubhouses, Sifford, Brown and different black professionals have been required to eat in eating rooms separate from the membership members. White professionals Bob Rosburg, Jackie Burke, Bob Goalby and Artwork Wall confirmed solidarity by consuming with them.
That they had their mates, however desegregation was new and uncooked, and few anticipated a black man to win.
It was spring 1964 when the Tour gamers rolled into Burneyville, Okla., for the Waco Turner Open. Turner, an oilman, was obsessed with golf and, even in these days, was thought-about an eccentric. He carried two .45-pistols and rode across the course on a horse, watching play.
The golf course was lengthy and vast open. Not a lot hassle. Exhausting fairways. Proper up Brown’s alley. Brown gained the match. He doesn’t keep in mind a lot about his landmark victory. Few present data point out it, however for that week Pete Brown was the perfect participant on the tour and the primary black participant to win.
When Brown gained in San Diego, in 1970, his victory was televised. He beat Tony Jacklin in a playoff. Jack Nicklaus was third. They metropolis of Jackson, Miss., staged Pete Brown Day after that. That they had a parade. Gave Pete a fishing boat.
Life in golf was effective. Brown was good to the followers, signed a variety of autographs, hung out with the children within the gallery. He and Margaret saved their cash for the approaching years.
“We thought we had all the pieces all set,” Margaret stated.
Pete drove from match to match, generally with Sifford, largely with Ray Fox. They’d apply all day, eat, sleep, play, and apply once more. It may very well be a grind, however it was an excellent dwelling in the event you performed effectively. Brown’s official lifetime earnings approached 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 {dollars}, good cash in these days.
They deliberate and saved. They thought they have been all set.
Nonetheless, the racial slights continued. In a match in Ohio, a hungry Brown stepped outdoors the ropes to purchase a hotdog. Marshalls wouldn’t let him again in. Tom Weiskopf intervened. “Let the person in,” Weiskopf stated. “He’s acquired to tee off.”
After enjoying in an exhibition in Florida, Brown slept in his automotive, frightened about threats from the Ku Klux Klan, which was prevalent within the space.
His again ache began in 1964. Pete couldn’t apply, couldn’t tee up the ball. In a single spherical, Dave Hill teed up Brown’s ball. Brown was in extreme ache and wished to stop. Hill instructed him to complete.
“This course has laborious fairways,” Hill stated. “All it’s a must to do is get the ball rolling.” Brown completed and gained an excellent test. However a disc drawback in his again had begun. It might plague him through the years, easing then recurring over the subsequent decade.
By the tip of the Seventies, Brown was enjoying in only a few PGA Tour occasions annually. A bunch from Dayton, Ohio, had approached Brown about taking the pinnacle skilled’s job at Madden Golf Course, a city-owned structure. They wished a well known black skilled. Sifford and Elder had turned them down. Brown’s recurring bodily illnesses made him suppose it was a good suggestion. Pete took the job. He and Margaret moved from California to Dayton.
Brown realized the ropes of the membership professional’s job. He was wildly standard, a celeb participant at a small municipal course. He had greater than 240 largely inner-city children in his junior program. He labored at Madden for 26 years. When he retired, they gave him a badge. No pension. No retirement. No advantages.
“They have been speculated to pay my means again to California,” Brown stated. “They by no means did.”
A lawyer instructed Brown it was the worst contract he’d ever seen.
Nonetheless, the Browns thought they might make it. They stayed in Dayton, rented a home. Then their daughter acquired sick.
“When it’s your little one, it’s a must to maintain them,” Margaret Brown stated. “It took virtually all the pieces we had.”
Their daughter died, the second of their six youngsters to die far too younger.
Calvin Peete came around. Renee Powell telephoned. Nonetheless, Pete’s loneliness persevered. Almost broke and much from previous mates, he missed his Southern newsContents. And he was in determined monetary straits.
Final autumn, a few of these previous mates intervened. Jim Dent, who lives in Tampa, had grown up in Augusta, Ga., and nonetheless owns a home there. When Dent, a considerate man, heard of the Browns’ plight from Jerry Osborne, a former caddie on the PGA Tour, he provided the home to the Browns.
Osborne contacted different previous mates. Some are talked about on this story. Some should not. Collectively they raised the cash for Pete and Margaret to maneuver. Shortly after Jan. 1, Pete and Margaret Brown drove into Augusta to maneuver into Dent’s rent-free home.
Margaret says she will reside wherever, so long as Pete is there. As for Pete, he appears happier. He’s nonetheless infirm however he has discovered good medical doctors. Associates go to and Dent drives up from Tampa about twice a month. If the Browns nonetheless wrestle financially, they’re not alone.
In March, after we visited the Browns, they have been ready for The Masters to be performed in Augusta in April. Certainly the Browns would see extra previous mates. “I hope so,” Margaret stated on the time. “Perhaps they’ll go to.”
On this sport during which robust bonds type, possibly they did.
