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Fortunately, says Brown, a 6-ft. 3-in., 285-lb. long-ball hitter, golf has shed many of its old discriminatory practices —or at least the most obvious ones. Six years ago, says Brown, when he was playing in a lefthanded tournament in Florida, he was not only banned from the clubhouse dining room but, he says, from winning. "I finished third," he explains, "but I would have won it had this white lady not stolen my ball on the 16th hole. I finally had to play it as a lost ball and lost two strokes."
Late Bloomer. Charlie Sifford remembers the segregated days all too clearly, but he refuses to talk about them lest they "make me bitter all over again." Though he won $33,180 last year, he feels shortchanged by golf. When he answers the phone in his four-room apartment in Los Angeles, he likes to crack: "Arnold Palmer's residence," an oblique dig at the uppity country-club set, who, he feels, regard him as a Rochester rather than a Jackie Robinson. Referring to the cigar he chomps on while playing, he says, "Yeah, that's the only way people can recognize me. I've been smoking them for 20 years, but no cigar company's come along to sponsor me."
The son of a Charlotte, N.C., laborer, Sifford was a caddie who began playing golf with gnarled sticks at ten. By the time he was 15, he was breaking 70. "I started playing," he recalls, "because I realized one day that I could hit the ball just as easy as I could hand the club to somebody else." After serving as Negro Singer Billy Eckstine's valet, chauffeur and golf instructor for five years, Sifford began touring in 1953. Polishing his methodically accurate game, he finished first in such tournaments as the Gardena Valley and Aberdeen opens, won the National Negro Championship four years in a row. In 1957 he entered the Long Beach Open and became the first Negro to win a regularly scheduled—though unofficial—P.G.A. tournament.
Since gaming his P.G.A. membership card in 1964, Sifford has increased his yearly earnings from $17,182 to a high of $47,025 in 1967, when he finished 25th in the money rankings. Though he slipped to 50th last season, he feels that his victory in the Los Angeles Open has launched him on "my best year yet." At 45, Sifford may not have many best years left. Nevertheless, capitalizing on a coaching tip from a friend, 48-year-old Julius Boros, he figures he will be a late bloomer. Says Sifford happily: "It's just been the last year that I learned to play the game—after 25 years of trying. I don't hook any more."