Oneda Castillo, global education instructor for the LPGA
We had our first U.S. Open here in the United States in 1895 and then in the second U.S. Open, which happened in 1896, there was an African-American man named John Shippen and there was a Native American man, his name is Oscar Bunn.
These two men signed up to play in the tournament, but what happened was the white guys who played in these tournaments before had played overseas before they came to the United States. They refused to play. They went to the tournament host and said, “Hey, if this black guy and this Native American guy play, we’re not going to play.”
So the head of the USGA, and this was 1896, his name was Theodore Havemeyer, his name is still on the USGA, U.S. Open tournament trophy. He said to all these white guys, “John Shippen and Oscar Bunn are going to play even if all you don’t.”
And so if we go back all the way to 1896, the beginning of golf really in this country, a white man stood up for a black man and a Native American man and he set a precedent in my mind for what it should be. However, because of the systemic racism that happens in our country, the golf world decided in 1934 to insert a Caucasian-only clause into the charter and not allow African-Americans to become members. And that remained in their charter until 1961. So you see, golf actually got started on a pretty nice footing and then took a nice little step backwards as more people decided they didn’t want to have African-Americans to be involved in the sport.
. . . As much as golf is a separate business and a separate piece of our American story, it still filters right back to the American story. And the story is this: If intentionally in 1619, people were brought to this country to be slaves, that was before we even had a government, don’t you think that it would take intentional effort to reverse it? Intentional. It’s not going to happen by accident… I look at the USTA, the United States Tennis Association. You notice when you watch the U.S. Open Tennis Championship, now you will see more people of color from the United States but they actually put forth a plan. . . . That involved African-American sororities, fraternities, communities, Boys and Girls Clubs, all kinds of things that they did. A pointed plan to increase the numbers of African-Americans who played the game.
That’s why I say if there was a plan and you brought Africans over to America and you made them slaves, you need to have a plan to fix that. And so I took my hat off to the USTA, what they did, because you can actually see it.