Lee Elder, 1934-2021

Late on a spring Sunday afternoon in 1997, a first stopped to greet a first.

The young man had been walking fast, en route to Butler Cabin at Augusta National Golf Club to be given a green jacket, the first man of color to slip into that unique shade. The older man, 22 years prior, had been the first African American to play in the Masters. He got a speeding ticket on his way to watch Tiger make history. The fine was worth it. Tiger Woods and Lee Elder hugged amid the tumult along a corridor of cheering spectators, the excitement of a new day in a golf that was a long time coming.

For all the fantastic golf Woods played over those 72 holes, that moment with Elder when the tournament was over stands out as a marker of history and potential for change.

Trail opened, trail climbed.  

Elder, who has passed away at age 87, had a modest record—four victories on the PGA Tour, eight on PGA Tour Champions—when compared to the careers of Woods and other superstars, but the measure of any Black golfer of Elder’s generation can’t be taken with trophies alone.

The World Golf Hall of Fame didn’t have too much to look at when it was located in Pinehurst, N.C., during the 1970s but there was a decent photography exhibit in the museum of a dozen or so oversize prints, mostly household names. I was always drawn to an image of Elder, exulting as he won the 1974 Monsanto Open in a playoff over Peter Oosterhuis, his first on the PGA Tour and the achievement that secured his historic trip to the Masters Tournament the following spring.

There was glee in that picture, a man jumping for joy who hadn’t always been allowed to walk into a clubhouse. Golf, the game, has always been color blind even if some of the people within it were not.

Orphaned as a child and on his own by the time he was a teen, Elder hustled and scraped his way up the golf ladder despite discouraging odds. In that way he was no different from pioneering African Americans who came before him, only closed doors opened enough for him, as they had for Charles Sifford, before it was too late as had been the case for Bill Spiller, Ted Rhodes and other talented minority golfers.

Still, Elder didn’t get on the PGA Tour until 1968, the year he turned 34 years old, after dominating on the UGA circuit for African American golfers. That season he battled Nicklaus for five holes before losing a playoff in the American Golf Classic at Firestone Country Club. It was on television, the most airtime a black golfer had ever gotten. Elder putted wearing his glove, same as the Golden Bear did. Golfers who looked like Elder watched him duel the game’s best and dreamed that they could do the same, Calvin Peete, among them.

In 1979, when a 45-year-old Elder became the first Black man to play on the United States Ryder Cup team, Peete won the first of his dozen career PGA Tour titles.

Elder endured death threats leading up to and during the 1975 Masters, the bigoted not happy about his milestone presence. The hate was evident even in the immediate aftermath of his Pensacola victory in the spring of 1974, when Elder had to be brought inside after winning because of a threat. There were rough moments off the course during his historic week in Georgia, but he competed without incident, teeing off for round one wearing three hues of green and hitting a fairway some never wanted him to walk.

Invited to join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to kick off the 2021 Masters, Elder wasn’t well enough to take another swing on the first hole. If the sight of Elder being honored in such a way at Augusta National was overdue, it was also welcome. Elder, raising a driver, was introduced to long applause, appreciation for a special golf life forged in trying circumstances. The octogenarian men with many majors hit ceremonial shots, but given their company, the flight of those tee balls on this Thursday morning didn’t much matter.