By Tod Leonard
Charlie Sifford and Renee Powell both spoke of the barriers and struggles they faced as African Americans who wanted to excel in golf. They each took on that challenge with strengths that earned them status at the highest levels of the professional game.

Now they are joined one more time in a new endeavour by the World Golf Hall of Fame. On the 17th anniversary on Monday of Sifford’s induction into the Hall, the organization announced that Powell will be the first recipient of the Charlie Sifford Award.

The award, the Hall said, “honours an individual who personifies Sifford’s groundbreaking achievements through perseverance, confidence, respect and adaptability. Powell—the second African American woman to ever compete on the LPGA Tour—demonstrated resilience amidst her own obstacles of racial adversity and segregation and dedicated her life to making golf a sport for all.”

The award, presented by Southern Company, will be given to Powell as part of the Hall of Fame’s 2022 induction ceremony on March 9 during the PGA Tour’s Players Championship week. Tiger Woods, Susie Maxwell Berning, Tim Finchem and Marion Hollins are the four inductees.

Powell, 75, competed as a member of the LPGA from 1967 to 1980, playing in more than 250 pro events. Since 1995 she has served as the head PGA/LPGA professional at Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio. The club was established in 1946 by her father, William Powell, as the first U.S. golf course designed, built, owned and operated by an African American. The club’s non-profit Clearview Legacy Foundation focuses on education, preservation, and research, with an emphasis on youth, minorities, veterans, seniors and other underrepresented groups.

“As a youngster, my parents fought to get me into tournaments when I was not welcomed because of the colour of my skin, which instilled in me how important it is to get young people into the game to help build their self-confidence,” Powell said in a statement. “I’m honoured to be the first recipient of this award and to see Charlie Sifford be recognized for breaking down barriers that never should have been put in front of him and all others of colour who strived to play this game. I was taught early on by my parents that golf should be a sport for everyone, and we can all diversify this game in so many ways.”

Sifford, who died in 2015, turned pro in 1948 but was excluded from playing on the PGA Tour until 1961, when he became the first African American to compete as a member. He won twice on tour and finished in the top 60 on the money list in each of his first nine seasons as a member. Sifford was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

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The opening ceremony for Renee Powell Hall, which will have beds for the dreamy, restless, weary, intoxicated, idealistic and ambitious heads of 205 University of St. Andrews students, is set for Sept. 19. It’s over by the athletic fields, or a brisk 15-minute walk from the 17th green of the Old Course.

What legacy will become of a building named for an African-American female golfer? The toniest dorm at the university is the gothic St. Salvators, named for the saviour, Jesus Christ. The fact Prince William and Kate Middleton resided there as students is merely one footnote in “Sallies” history. And the turreted red sandstone dorm you’ve seen in a million photographs and paintings, next to the gray Royal & Ancient clubhouse behind the 18th green, is Hamilton. Named for a Duke, it recently was purchased away from the university and has returned to its roots as luxury accommodation.

JOHN STEWART
Renee Powell Hall at the University of St. Andrews will have its opening ceremony in September.

In a PGA of America Hall of Fame career, Powell competed in more than 250 professional events worldwide. She was the second black female to play on the LPGA Tour in 1967 (Althea Gibson being the first three years earlier). Now 72, Powell is the head professional at Clearview Golf Club in her hometown of East Canton, Ohio, and the founder of Clearview HOPE, a year-round rehabilitation program for female veterans.

The dormitory isn’t Powell’s first honour in the birthplace of golf. She was given an honorary degree by the University of St. Andrews in 2008 and was among the first wave of seven female members inducted into the R&A in 2015. But a name on a piece of paper weighs nothing compared to one set in stone.

“To receive such an unbelievable honor and to forever be a part of one of the most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom is too difficult to express in words,” Powell said. “I have always considered myself a citizen of the world, and I guess now I will forever be remembered as such.”

Also scheduled to open this fall, next to Powell Hall, is a dorm named for Katharine Whitehorn, the British journalist. “Powell and Whitehorn are being recognized for their inspiration in diversity in golf and the advancement of women social causes, respectively,” the news release said.

When I was a student at the University of St. Andrews (concurrent with Prince Willy although we ran in different social circles—you can read my backstory on that here if you wish) I had a blind friend, Derek. He’d lost his sight when he was cross-country skiing on the shoulder of the road in his native Iceland, and was struck by a car. “It’s all black, completely black,” Derek told me, “Press your fists over your eyes and that’s what I see.”

Derek counted steps everywhere he went. He knew exactly how many it took to go up the stairs and turn the corner to the computer lab, how many to walk down The Scores to get a pint at Ma Bells, from there through the walled enclosure to buy a meat pie at The Vic, how many to doubleback to the cathedral graveyard where Old and Young Tom Morris are buried, and the tricky steps on the staircases behind South Street. He knew the way between every pub, store, administrative office, roundabout and party flat in town. “That’ll be 983 steps,” he’d say about point A to point B, and break down each leg of the journey in detail you’d never noticed.

I mention Derek only for two reasons. To reinforce that there is no distinct campus at the University of St. Andrews. The destinations for locals, students and visitors mix together, so the names of buildings really matter. More so, I think, than a traditional college campus where a single swath of property is the institution and the individual structures blend subserviently to the greater whole. And although it’s hard to fathom, most students who go here are not golfers. When they wonder who Renee Powell is, they’ll learn she’s neither a saint nor royalty.

It is a powerful statement to make in 2018 from a university founded in 1413, and it will echo far beyond the underworld of golf.

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