Breaking par against racism: beyond Shoal Creek

Black Enterprise, Sept, 1996 by Bobby Clay

It has been six years since Shoal Creek Golf & Country Club founder Hall Thompson let the cat out of the bag by saying "We don't discriminate in every other area except the black...The country club is our home and we pick and choose who we want." Six years since golf's major governing bodies, forced to pull their heads out of the sand, told private clubs to ditch the exclusionary policies or forget about hosting tournaments. Six years since Arthur Ashe predicted that "one of the last bastions of exclusion and nonacceptance of African Americans is about to capitulate." And, yes, six years later the tide is slowly turning.

Some of the oldest, most established clubs in America now have black members, including Shinnecock and Winged Foot in New York, Medina and Olympia Fields in Chicago, Oakland Hills in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Baltusrol in New Jersey, Augusta National in Georgia, the Robert Trent Jones Country Club in Virginia and the Los Angeles Country Club. Yet, prior to Shoal Creek, a black man stood a better chance of being elected president than of being accepted as a member at most all-white country clubs.

"Either one or two things used to happen if you asked a guy to sponsor you at his club," says Darwin N. Davis, senior vice president of external relations at The Equitable Companies Inc. in New York. "Either you never heard from him again, or he'd come back and say, `Darwin, I don't believe this. I'm shocked. The club members don't even want to discuss this. They told me that if I don't like it, then get the hell out. There's nothing I can do.' "

"Their excuse," says James H. Lowry, owner of the Chicago-based management consulting firm that bears his name, "was that they did not control the board or the membership committee, that they, themselves, did not have the clout. Bullshit. You could note the many times a new CEO was coming to Chicago and within a year or two they were members of a private club."

There can be no denying that the threat of losing prestigious tournaments has been the single biggest impetus for change. Shoal Creek's membership reversed field in midstream and quickly admitted Birmingham businessman Louis Willie when it realized that it was about to lose the esteemed PGA Championships. "When they want to host a tournament," Davis chuckles, "all of a sudden there's room for black members."

Lowry offers two other possible reasons for the change of policies, if not entirely a change of hearts. "I think you have in all of these clubs a minority of members who finally said, `Hey, its the 1990s. It's time to get off this stuff.' Plus, from our side, there were so many of us who were members of major charity boards, advisory boards and the like, that it just got to be downright embarrassing."

Now Lowry is a member at Medina. Milt Irvin, managing director of Salomon Brothers, is a member at Baltusrol. Bill Lewis, head of real estate at Morgan Stanley is at Shinnecock. Nathaniel Goldston, chairman and CEO of Gourmet Services Inc., the Atlanta-based BE 100s company, is at the Golf Club of Georgia. Jim Davis, senior vice president of Georgia Power, is at the Atlanta Athletic Club. Roy Clay, owner and president of Rod-L Electronics Inc., is a member at The Olympic Club. Joe Anderson, chairman and CEO of Chivas Products, is a member at Oakland Hills, Eric Johnson, president of Baldwin Ice Cream, is a member at Olympia Fields, former NFL wide receiver Gene Washington is a member at the Los Angeles Country Club and high-powered attorney Vernon Jordan is a member at Robert Trent Jones Country Club. And the list keeps growing.

"Shoal Creek has certainly made everybody involved in golf more determined to take steps to insure that it's a sport of inclusion rather than exclusion," says David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association (USGA). "From what I've been able to tell, in most parts of the country it has become a buyer's market. By that I mean that if an African American wants to join a private club, you generally have a lot of choices because most of these clubs are looking for people who are interested in joining their club."

Whether these same clubs are interested in accepting more than one or two blacks is the issue today, six years after Thompson's remarks became a watershed event. That and the more practical question of whether it is really worth the initial $20,000-$35,000 investment and the monthly dues of roughly $6,000-$7,000 to belong to one of these clubs.

George Lewis, vice president and treasurer at Phillip Morris Companies Inc., is one of a handful of African Americans who was a member of an old, established club before Shoal Creek. He was accepted into New York's St. Andrews Golf Club in 1988 and had been a member of the Ville Du Parc Country Club in Milwaukee before that.

"I had been away from New York for a couple of years, but when I returned as vice president and treasurer of Phillip Morris, I said, `Hell, I'm a vp, I should be able to get in any club I want to,' " Lewis recalls. "As I talked to a number of people, I told them that I was interested in getting in and I'd appreciate their help. Some would come back and say there weren't any openings, or give me some other reason. It got to the point that I got very discouraged.