Sifford Blazed a Trail Few Have Followed : Golf: He was the first black to win a PGA tournament, but it hardly began a parade of minority winners.

As a young caddie at the all-white Carolinas Country club in Charlotte, N.C., Charlie Sifford was allowed to play golf once a week--a luxury.

“Ain’t no black golf courses in North Carolina, so they let us play on Mondays,” Sifford said Friday from Albuquerque where he is competing in the Charley Pride Senior Golf tournament. “I was shooting par golf when I was 15 or 16 years old.”

Sifford, 68, was not the first black to play golf in the early 1950s, and certainly not the only black to try to play on tour. Bill Spiller and Tom Rhodes played before him and with him. But Sifford was the first black to win a PGA event, the 1967 Hartford Open, and his perseverance the last 40 years has set him apart as golf’s Jackie Robinson.

“I was never frightened, but I knew it wouldn’t be a picnic,” Sifford said. “I was determined, so it was no surprise to me. The job had to be done, and I thought I was qualified to do it.”

Sifford wanted equal play on the national PGA tour, not just on the Negro golf circuit, on which he won the Negro National Open six times.

In 1954, a year before Arnold Palmer joined the tour, Sifford played in his first PGA event and finished that year with $281.43 in official tour winnings. He remembers playing with Palmer the next year.

“It was the Canadian Open, and I led it the first day, but I think Palmer won the tournament,” Sifford said.

Unlike Palmer, however, Sifford wasn’t considered official by the PGA. In golf then, blacks weren’t recognized as PGA members.

It was 1962 before the PGA was forced to throw out its “Caucasians only” rule and open tournaments to blacks. But such a rule never stopped Sifford.

In his early days, he played in PGA tournaments in the North and in the West, where some tournament directors were more liberal. As a rule, he did not play in spring and early summer in the South.

In 1961, Sifford became the first black to play in a PGA tournament in the South. He tied for fourth in the Greater Greensboro (N.C.) Open.

“Actually I became official (in the PGA) in 1960, but not as a member,” Sifford said. “They gave me an approved player’s card in 1960, and I kept it until 1974 before I missed qualifying. I was in the top 60 in money for 10 years (1960-69).”

From the beginning, Sifford’s determination was a source of controversy. Even as a proven player, in 1961, the PGA argued within its ranks about Sifford’s eligibility. And later that year blacks picketed the Houston Memorial Park course because Sifford had not been invited to compete in the Houston tournament.

Sifford, though, just kept getting better. He followed his victory in the Hartford Open by one in the 1969 Los Angeles Open. His best year on the tour was 1967, when he won $47,025 and finished 25th on the earnings list.

Sifford quit the tour in the late ‘70s and took a job as a teaching professional at Sleepy Hollow Golf Course in Ohio. But it wasn’t long before he was back full time, joining the senior tour in 1980.

On the regular tour, Sifford had total earnings of $341,345. In nine years on the senior tour, he has won $646,956.

In 1961, Sifford told the Milwaukee Journal that he and golf had worked out an equitable arrangement: He earned his living from golf and in return helped golf find a place for his race.

“Because of my playing and my character, I think I have done a good job,” Sifford said at the time.

Apparently, he isn’t done yet.