Renaming Horton Smith Award is hasty, ill-informed

Commentary by Tim Cronin

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Segregation in golf was and is abhorrent and has lasted for more than a century. It continues at many country clubs in this country and abroad.

In short, it has mirrored and continues to mirror society as a whole. This is not to accept it, but to understand the deep hole golf’s early leaders dug for themselves and which more recent leaders have tried to climb out of.

In climbing, there is sometimes a misstep. The PGA of America’s decision Thursday to rename the Horton Smith Award to the generic PGA Professional Development Award is one.

The association explained none of their reasoning, merely announcing the move “based upon review of its namesake” and saying the award had “racial ties.”

Instead, PGA president Suzy Whaley said “the PGA of America is taking ownership of a failed chapter in our history that resulted in excluding many from achieving their dreams of earning the coveted PGA Member badge and advancing the game of golf. We need to do all we can to ensure the PGA of America is defined by inclusion.”

Smith, fighting uphill, was trying to do just that. If anything, his cohorts failed to follow his lead.

He was one of the few in golf who tried to move golf forward before it was fashionable. A sensation early in his career – he was added to the Ryder Cup team after winning seven times as a 22-year-old rookie – Smith, raised in Joplin, Mo., won the first and third Masters while associated with Oak Park Country Club, and largely on that basis was elected to the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.

There was another reason his induction was welcomed. When he was president of the PGA of America in 1952, in those years when the body of golf pros was staunchly all-white, to the point where its by-laws said “only members of the caucasian race” could be members, Smith tried to bend the curve.

The stage was the 1952 San Diego Open. Bill Spiller and Joe Louis had entered at the invitation of the tournament organizers. The PGA of America tournament committee turned them down because of their race. Spiller, a prominent black pro, threatened a lawsuit. Louis, the former heavyweight champion and a fine amateur golfer, compared Smith to Hitler, saying “Horton Smith believes in the white race (the way) Hitler believed in the super race.”

Smith was stuck with upholding his association’s rules, but wanted to defuse the controversy. The week before Louis’ comments, he’d told Chester Washington, Louis’ secretary, that he was sympathetic with opening tournaments to all, and that he expected a resolution to strike the caucasian-only clause would be introduced at the next PGA annual meeting.

Alas, it took until 1961 – after the PGA was forced to move the 1962 PGA Championship from California because of the clause – for the association to see the light.

Smith was ahead of his peers by nine years, but knew those peers would not be easy to convince. Reported Golf World in its Jan. 18, 1952, issue, “Smith said he favors ‘evolution’ as the proper method for the Negro golfers to proceed, and that he objected to ‘revolution.’ He urged Washington not to press the PGA at present because a controversy would injure rather than help the Negro cause.”

So Smith brokered a compromise, putting Louis in the field because he was an amateur and thus wasn’t subject to PGA of America by-laws. Spiller was steamed, stood in front of the first tee before the first round to hold up play, but eventually relented at Louis’ behest. Louis played with Smith, and while neither made the cut, the point was made.

Smith went further. He set up a committee of leading black golfers, including Spiller, Louis and Ted Rhodes, to create an “approved list” of black players for tournaments, and got the PGA of America Tournament Committee to recognize their list by a 6-0 vote, with one member unable to be reached by phone.

That opened the way for Rhodes, Spiller and Eural Clark of Los Angeles to play the Phoenix Open the following week. Louis failed to qualify, though he, Rhodes and Charlie Sifford played in Tucson the week after. (Louis opened with a 69.)

The one setback Smith couldn’t overcome was the ability of tournament sponsors and host courses to bar blacks. That continued, but Smith in the space of a couple of weeks did more to advance integrating the tournament circuit, and thus golf in general, than anyone had in the previous 64 years the game had been played in the United States.

Despite the above facts, on Thursday, the PGA of America decided to take Horton Smith’s name off the award given annually by the national body and its 41 regional sections since 1965 to someone who has advanced continuing education for fellow professionals.

In its release, the PGA called Smith “a defender of the ‘Caucasian-only’ membership clause,” failing to note his actions, detailed above, in beginning to lift the ban. They were hardly those of a defender.

Recognizing the shortcomings of an organization’s past is welcome, and usually leads to an enlightened future. Acting in ignorance of the facts and painting with a broad brush often obscures the details. Such is the case in the PGA’s action. Smith should not be pilloried as one of the many in golf who were against integration, but celebrated as one of the few who had the courage to do something.