Nothing Unique at Shoal Creek

If you have ever attended a professional golf tournament, you may have noted the vast sea of white and off-white (which is to say tanned) faces in the gallery. Nothing wrong there. Blacks can attend golf tournaments if they wish, but most, for whatever reasons, choose not to. That is up to the individual. It’s a free country.

Or is it?

Obviously, it’s not exactly free. If you want to be a member at one of the country clubs where they hold the majority of professional golf tournaments, it will cost you great gobs of money, in some cases tens of thousands of dollars. That financial burden would exclude most of us. That’s OK, too, I guess. If the rich want to cleave unto themselves and lock the doors to average folk, that’s their business. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to hang around them either(although I suspect you wouldn’t mind driving their cars).

Where it gets sticky is when there are rich black people who, for whatever reason, want to join the ultra rich, ultra white country club and find they and their money are not wanted. This happens. This happens a lot. This may have happened at the all-white Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., site of the next PGA Championship.

Club officials have said there is no policy barring blacks. It just happens they’ve never had any black members. Hall Thompson, the club’s founder, was apparently a little more forthcoming when he told an Alabama newspaper that the club would not be pressured into admitting blacks. He said members didn’t feel comfortable with blacks.

As it happens, it is legal for private clubs to bar blacks, Jews, women, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, gays and people with crooked tan lines. There may be a slight ethical problem with such exclusions, however.

Among those who had a problem with Thompson’s comments was the International Business Machines, the corporation with a conscience, which told ABC-TV to pull its ads from the tournament coverage. Toyota, Honda and Anheuser-Busch have followed suit, although the beer company wouldn’t disclose the reason for its decision.

We could applaud these companies and any others who step forward, except that would be too easy. That would suggest that Shoal Creek is somehow unique or even unusual.

The most famous golf tournament in America is the Masters, held annually at Augusta National, which may be the most exclusive club in the world. It was estimated last year in the pages of Golf Digest that the 306 members were worth a total of about $10 billion. Dwight Eisenhower used to belong there. George Shultz belongs. So does Melvin Laird. And the CEOs of a lot of important companies. But it is assumed there are no black members. A club spokesman declined to discuss membership or membership policies.

It was not until the mid-’70s that a black had ever played in the Masters. And before the late ‘70s, when golfers were allowed to bring their own caddies, the pros had to use the Augusta staff, which was all black. The picture of white golfers and black caddies was a stark symbol of all the old-time Southern values for which the magnolia-laden Masters stands. Has anyone ever pulled advertising from the Masters?

At the Atlanta Athletic Club, host of this year’s U.S. Women’s Open, no blacks. But please don’t get the idea these patterns are unique to the South. At Medinah, outside Chicago, where they held the last men’s U.S. Open, there are apparently no black members. At Bellerive, outside St. Louis, host of the 1992 PGA, no black members. There are no black members at the Baltimore Country Club, which was host to the Women’s Open a few years ago. Those clubs that do disclose their membership policy invariably say blacks are not excluded, but they must be nominated by a sponsoring member and then approved. Usually, it just doesn’t come up. And, of course, there is a very large gulf between not excluding someone from membership and actually welcoming him or her.

The PGA, reacting to the controversy, is considering a proposal that would eliminate host clubs from the tour if they are found to discriminate in their membership policies. David Fay is executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, which runs the men’s and women’s U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur and 10 other national tournaments. Fay says the USGA has no policy, but, in light of the PGA controversy, will soon consider whether or not to make one. But the USGA does ask host clubs about membership policies.

“We will be in Hazelton next year,” Fay said of the U.S. Open scheduled for the club in a Minneapolis suburb. “There are no black members now, but they have had black members in the past. We’re totally satisfied that it’s not a problem there. And, the year after, we’ll be at Pebble Beach.”

California’s Pebble Beach is a public course. Anyone can play there. It is a most atypical classic course, most of which are in the most exclusive private clubs.

“We have a potential conflict of interest,” Fay said. “You certainly don’t want to go to a place that condones discrimination. On the other hand, you want to hold the event on the best course available.

“When we’re on the site, we insist on equal access for everyone. But how far does our responsibility go? Do we have a responsibility for the other 51 weeks, or indeed years, that we’re not at the clubs? That’s what we’re going to have to determine.”

He added that there is not a long line of clubs willing to be host, at a loss, of such events as the boys junior open. Can the USGA be as selective there?

It depends, I guess. It depends on priorities. The priorities are easy at Shoal Creek, where someone stands up and finally says what a lot of people have long suspected. It’s a dirty little secret, a gentlemen’s agreement, that everyone knew about -- but that no one wanted to hear said aloud.