Fair Ways: How Six Black Golfers Won Civil Rights in Beaumont, Texas

CHAPTER 4. White Golf, Black Golf

C H A P T E R 4 White Golf, Black Golf W hen Fayson, Griffin, and the others filed suit against the city of Beaumont, they had a two-fold purpose: They wanted to play golf at the municipal course, and they wanted to start dismantling the southern caste system in their hometown. In a strategic sense then, the golf course case was a means to an end, an opening salvo in a battle just beginning. But the golf itself was important. Golf was a part of American culture. Men and women of the upper classes, white and black, played the game at private country clubs, while middle-class citizens did the same at private, municipal, and daily-fee courses. Working-class Americans, white, black, and brown, enjoyed the game too, sometimes paying admission at public facilities, other times playing courses during off hours when they were closed to regular patrons. Initially golf in America was a game exclusively of the white upper classes. Imported from England and Scotland, the game was permanently established in the United States during the 1880s when golf courses were developed at private clubs in Oakhurst, West Virginia; Foxburg, Pennsylvania; and Yonkers, New York. Other courses were constructed during the early 1890s at clubs in Newport, Rhode Island; Long Island, New York; and Chicago, Illinois. Golfers organized the game formally in 1894, establishing the United States Golf Association (USGA) and giving it the authority to promulgate rules for the game and to stage national 68 CHAPTER 4 championship tournaments: the Amateur, the Women’s Amateur, and the Open, all of which they inaugurated in 1895.1 During the first half of the twentieth century, golf became increasingly popular, developing simultaneously with a rapid growth of private country clubs that began in the 1920s. Organized by white upper-class citizens in towns across America, the clubs served as venues for recreation and socialization as well as agencies of status and social exclusion. The clubs, often palatial houses on pastoral grounds, provided prestigious settings for social events and first-class facilities for tennis, swimming, and golf. Men and women members played golf avidly, the men often combining business with pleasure and entertaining customers on the course and in the clubhouse bar. Golf champions and their tournament victories generated publicity for the game and broadened its appeal to Americans of all classes and both genders. Francis Ouimet, the youthful caddy, won the U.S. Open in 1913; Walter Hagen, the dashing middle-class American, captured various titles, including the British Open, in 1920; and Bobby Jones, the stylish gentleman golfer, reigned supreme among professional and amateur players from 1923 to 1930, collecting thirteen national titles, including four U.S. Opens and three British Opens. Joyce Wethered of Great Britain, winner of numerous tournaments on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1920s, stimulated interest in the game among American women.2 During the early 1950s, when Booker Fayson and his friends campaigned for desegregation of the Beaumont municipal course, the game of golf in America was changing and expanding. Herbert Warren Wind, noted golf historian, called this period (1946–55) the “Age of Hogan,” when Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, and other members of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) traveled the nation, playing tournaments, winning prize money, and capturing headlines. President Dwight Eisenhower, an ardent golfer, further popularized the game, as did Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and other Hollywood celebrities who staged charity and promotional tournaments. At the same time, the game attracted more women as they followed the accomplishments of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Betty Jameson, and other members of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).3 WHITE GOLF, BLACK GOLF 69 The historian Wind described a great golf boom in the 1950s, when millions of Americans made the game an intrinsic part of their lives. Corporations built courses for their employees while cities and states developed more public links to promote recreation and attract new business and industry. Between 1946 and 1955, the estimated number of golfers rose from 2.5 million to 4 million, while the number of courses increased from 4,817 to 5,218, the latter figure including 2,807 private, 1,534 daily-fee, and 877 municipal courses. These numbers, compiled by the National Golf Foundation, show that 46 percent of the facilities (daily-fee and municipal) were open to the public and indicate...