Full circle at Shoal Creek: An untold story of one man’s convictions changing racial inclusion at 1990 PGA Championship and golf as a whole

The convictions of one man changed the course of racial inclusion at the major in Alabama — and golf.

Pat Rielly was never afraid to stand up for the little guy.

In 1953, the 6-foot-tall junior reserve forward on the Sharon (Pennsylvania) High basketball team was on his way to play in the state regional finals in Pittsburgh when the team stopped for dinner in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, a borough north of Pittsburgh in the heart of coal and iron country. 

Rielly noticed that his three Black teammates – Charlie Shepard, Charlie Mitchell and Edward Woods – weren’t eating and sidled over to talk to them.

“I said, ‘What are guys doing? Are you saving your $5?’ ” Rielly recalled more than 60 years later. “Mitchell said, ‘They won’t serve us.’ I said, ‘Why?’ All three stared at me and said, ‘You know why.’ ” 

This sort of discrimination was illegal but still prevalent, even in southwestern Pennsylvania, and it sent Rielly into a rage. He was the eighth or ninth man on the team, a sub, but he knew right from wrong. When he approached the owner and asked politely why his teammates were being refused to be served, the owner didn’t hide his contempt. “We’re not serving any (N-word),” he said.

With the courage of his convictions, Rielly said they would not pay until the entire team was fed. The owner wouldn’t budge. Neither would Rielly.

“So, we got up and left,” Rielly said. “We stopped and got something to eat another 20 miles up the road, closer to Pittsburgh.”

To Rielly, his memory of the game, which the team won, paled in comparison to the lesson he learned that day.

“You do the right thing, and sometimes you get criticized for it,” he said. “But when you do the right thing for the right reasons, it turns out the right way always.”

Pat Rielly (pictured, back row, fourth from right) and his 1953 high school basketball team from Sharon, Pennsylvania (Courtesy of the Rielly family)

In the early 1960s, Rielly was traveling with a handful of fellow Marines. They needed a few more hours of flight time and convinced the pilot to fly to Reno, Nevada, the self-proclaimed “Biggest little city in the world,” where Las Vegas-style gambling, entertainment and dining is compressed into a few city blocks. As only Rielly could do, he placed a roulette bet not even understanding the rules and won several thousand dollars at a time when that was a lot of money. He took everyone to dinner and ordered a feast. After paying the bill, he still had a wad of cash left over, so he tipped the waiters generously, loaned some money to his pals and went into the kitchen. The employees stopped what they were doing to hear him speak.

“My mother was a dishwasher,” he said. “That’s why I was able to play golf on Mondays. This game has given me everything.”

Then he handed the dishwashers in the restaurant a stack of cash from his winnings. Most of them didn’t understand a word he said, but they shook his hand and gladly accepted the money.

These two dinner stories illustrate why Rielly was the right man at the right time to be serving as the 26th President of the PGA of America in 1990 when Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, was scheduled to host the PGA Championship, and professional golf would be forced to change its rules regarding clubs with exclusionary practices. This was uncharted territory for a golf association and a watershed moment in golf’s race relations. It demanded a leader with a dose of humility just below his confidence.

“His own personal integrity matched the integrity of the game he loved,” said Rielly’s longtime friend and former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman.

But it wasn’t until more than 20 years later that Rielly learned just how important his role in a long-forgotten dinner played in launching an era of inclusion. Then he insisted this story wait until after he died. Now it can be told.

PGA Tour at players react to latest racial injustice

The PGA Tour released a statement prior to Thursday’s round and afterwards, several players shared their thoughts on the matter.

The FedEx Cup Playoffs continued on Thursday at Olympia Fields near Chicago, the second of three playoff events on the PGA Tour but a discussion point throughout the day was the ongoing racial divisions in the U.S.

Before the first tee shot was struck, the Tour, in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, issued a statement, which pledged support for athletes of other pro sports leagues using “their respective platforms to bring about the urgent need for change in our country. There have been a number of efforts in the past to send a message that the current climate is unacceptable, and these teams, leagues and players now taking this step will help draw further attention to the issues that really matter. The PGA Tour supports them – and any of our own members – standing up for issues they believe in.”

Cameron Champ
The Nike golf shoes worn by Cameron Champ with messages written in support of Black Lives Matter at the 2020 BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club. Photo by Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Several players spoke after their rounds.

Cameron Champ

“I have Papa Champ on my sneakers, Black Lives Matter and Breonna Taylor. Obviously there are some very important reasons why that’s on my shoes. For my grandfather, if anyone knows my story, he grew up in the South, Jim Crow, all those eras through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and obviously Breonna Taylor, which is another ongoing issue. For me again that’s kind of where I stand with this. I just want to show my love and support and obviously with my hat, as well.

“Black Lives Matter means all lives matter. When people say all lives matter, yes, all lives matter, but so do Black lives. It’s a situation where, again, as a country, as a whole we’ve kind of dug ourselves a hole. Now with media and people videotaping and seeing things, it’s starting to come alive. People are starting to talk about it, which is the good thing. Without dialogue, without talking about it, nothing is going to happen. And so I think this is — it’s a decent start, but obviously there’s still a lot of stuff going on that quite frankly should not be happening at all. And even with Jacob Blake, it’s the same thing. I get criticized for doing something, but then when you look at the facts, he’s still a human being. Regardless if he has a criminal record, regardless of any of that, he’s still a human being, and for me just to watch that video — again, regardless of what he’s done in his past or people saying he had an arrest warrant or he had this, he had that, he’s a human being. It just has to end.”

Tony Finau

“Anyone that’s willing to have the uncomfortable conversation about systemic racism and just that in general in our country I think is a healthy thing for all of us,” said Finau. “We continue to learn from each other in a positive way I think is the most important thing, and we all have different perspectives as we go through our life. Listening to each other I think is a big deal, so they took a stand for what they think is the right thing, and as a society I think it’s our responsibility to just listen and pay attention to what’s going on around us, and if we’re willing to have those uncomfortable conversations, I think our country can continue to move forward.”

BMW Championship
Mackenzie Hughes hits his tee shot on the 16th hole hole during the first round of the BMW Championship golf tournament at Olympia Fields Country Club – North. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Mackenzie Hughes

“It’s a very difficult topic. I think there’s no question that there’s a problem, and I hear both sides of it. I do a good job of trying to listen to both sides and hear both sides. We need to come to a solution for sure. There’s no reason for that much force to be used in that kind of situation. I think we can all agree on that. Yeah, it’s just unfortunate that we’re dealing with this in this day and age. … I think things need to change. There needs to be discussion to continuing, and yeah, I’m willing to talk to anyone about it and keep it going.”

Tiger Woods

“I talked to the commissioner (Jay Monahan). Obviously he released his statement, and all the guys were on board. So no, obviously there was talk about it (not playing on Thursday) because of obviously what happened, but we’re all on board, on the same page.”

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Historic player organization movements are only the beginning

If a players union is ever going to exist at the college level, it will not come from the generosity of college athletics administrators.

Earlier this week, a group of Pac-12 players sent a letter to the Players’ Tribune with a list of demands for the conference and are threatening to opt-out of the 2020 football season should those demands not be met.

The list was later shared by a number of Pac-12 athletes on Twitter, including Oregon star Penei Sewell, who is a projected early first-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

The players’ demands cover a wide range of issues, from COVID-19 safety to racial justice and compensation. For COVID-19 protections, players want the ability to opt-out of the season free from punishment within their programs and for safety standards to be maintained by a third party. To protect the status of all sports during the pandemic, they are demanding pay cuts from Commissioner Larry Scott, as well as coaches and administrators.

They also want the right to profit off their name, image and likeness, as well as the distribution of 50 percent of total conference revenue from each sport evenly among the athletes in those sports.

In response to this, players across the nation voiced their support for the movement, including Florida defensive end Zachary Carter.

Groups of players in both the Big 10 and Mountain West followed suit, giving their own list of demands to conference administrators. However, the lists of demands from those conferences aren’t as broad as that of the Pac-12 players. They only address COVID-19 safety and not wider-reaching social issues.

These movements have shown unprecedented levels of player organization at a time when it is desperately needed. As players unions in the NBA, MLB and NFL have negotiated substantive protections for their players, college athletes — who have no representation whatsoever — have been largely forced to go along with the (generally terrible) decisions made by those who allegedly care about their best interest.

Of course, the players have power; any group of organized laborers does. It’s the reason trade unions exist in the first place. But without a union (which the players desperately need for a number of reasons, as the Pac-12 players have demonstrated), the players are essentially powerless as individuals.

That’s why these grassroots organizational movements are so important. Once players realize they have power in numbers, they will be able to affect change within the system. Maybe not everything they are demanding, but significant change nonetheless.

If a players union is ever going to exist at the college level, it will not come from the generosity of college athletics administrators. Allowing the players, who aren’t technically employees, to unionize would give the game away for the NCAA. If players can collectively bargain, the current system of college athletics would be burned to the ground.

And it should be.

Because ultimately, the value of college sports isn’t derived from the NCAA. It comes from the players. And the only way the players will get what they deserve is if they force the issue through organized, collective action.

If met, the demands of the Pac-12 players would preclude the league from competing in NCAA-sanctioned events, as nearly all of them violate current amateurism rules. But, so what? Do the conferences really need the NCAA to survive?

Talking to ESPN, Ramogi Huma, founder of the college athletics advocacy group the National College Players Association, phrased the answer succinctly.

Huma said the players are aware that if the Pac-12 met their demands that the conference would not be eligible to participate in NCAA-sanctioned competitions or championships.

“Right now, it’s clear that the conferences don’t need the NCAA. Each conference is an industry unto itself,” Huma said. “[The players are saying,] ‘We’re fine if our conference doesn’t belong to the NCAA at all. We need to be treated fairly.'”

Don’t misunderstand, some reforms are certainly possible within the system, as state legislators allowing players to be compensated for the use of their names, images and likenesses shows.

But historically, massive, systemic reforms for labor groups tend to stem from one thing and one thing only: tireless and unflinching advocacy from the laborers themselves until those taking advantage of them have no choice remaining but to listen.

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