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Age mythology player color11/14/2022 ![]() ![]() The tournament eased a bit in 1971 by announcing that any player who subsequently won a PGA Tour event would automatically qualify for it. With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, it came under pressure to integrate its ranks. ![]() The Masters, played annually at Augusta National, had no clause barring Black golfers, but unofficially it remained closed to them. “The game of golf lost a hero in Lee Elder,” Nicklaus said in a statement on Monday. The PGA of America, the national association of pro golfers, accepted only “members of the Caucasian race,” as its rules had spelled out, until 1961.Įlder was among the leading players on the UGA tour, which over the years also featured such outstanding golfers as Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, who was the first Black player on the PGA Tour, and Pete Brown while offering comparatively meager purses.Įlder first played regularly on the PGA Tour in 1968, and that August he took Jack Nicklaus to a playoff at the American Golf Classic in Akron, Ohio, losing in sudden death. Years earlier, in his prime, he played in the United Golfers Association tour, the sport’s version of baseball’s Negro leagues. When Elder teed off at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in April 1975, he was 40 years old. The PGA Tour announced the death but provided no other details. ![]() Lee Elder, who became the first African American golfer to play in the Masters tournament, a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour, died on Sunday in Escondido, Calif. ![]()
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