The Ottawa Citizen has a very interesting article on Papwa Sewgolum, an illiterate native of Durban, who some say may have been the best golfer South Africa has ever seen.

High praise, considering the accomplishments of Gary Player.

During the prime of Mr. Player’s career there was another South African who was his equal on the links, who defeated him in 1965 at a sensational provincial open championship in Durban and who won several European championships. Papwa Sewgolum was the great-grandson of an indentured labourer from India, an impoverished illiterate who possessed prodigious amounts of raw talent. Had he been permitted by the apartheid regime to play the game at the same level, with similar advantages as Mr. Player and other white golfers, there is no telling what he might have accomplished.

Mr. Sewgolum could have left his home in Durban’s suburbs to play professional golf overseas, where racism was less overt. But he was a sweet, simple man who hated travelling. His life and career thus became portraits of the evil apartheid did. The regime crushed him bit by bit, in a myriad of ways. And it happened while Mr. Player golfed with prime minister Johannes Vorster, the symbol of everything apartheid represented.

The article reminds me in some ways of the speculation that surrounds the potential of various Negro League Players. How good would Josh Gibson or Buck O’Neil have been if given a chance to play in the bigs? We’ll never know.

Ultimately, Sewgolum’s story, and that of the Negro League players, is a sad one. I don’t think there’s anything as tragic as great potential wasted.

The Wall Street Journal has a terrific story on William Powell, a 91 year old whose love of golf led him to build his own course:

… one thing differentiates Clearview not just from its neighbors, but from every other course in the U.S. It was designed and built and continues to be owned by an African-American, William Powell. When I arrived for a visit recently, Mr. Powell, 91 years old, was sitting in a golf cart talking to friends beneath the maple trees near the clubhouse. Earlier that morning he had done some mowing on a tractor.

An accomplished player in his youth, Powell faced racial discrimination and indignities in his efforts to play the game he loved. Upon his return from from World War II—and having been denied GI Bill benefits, he decided to build a course where he could play:

In 1946, Mr. Powell bought a derelict dairy farm with the financial backing of two African-American doctors from Canton and set to work on his field of dreams. “I wanted a place where I could play and anyone could play, open to all, without regard to race, creed or color,” he said.

Most of the back-breaking work at the course was done by hand. He cleared the pastures of chest-high brush, dug up fence posts and hauled away stones in wheelbarrows. When it came time to plant the fairways, he sowed the seeds by walking up and down the would-be fairways.

He finished the first nine after two years of labor, all the while supporting his young family with a night-shift job at the nearby Timken ball-bearing plant.

By 1978, he had expanded the course to 18 holes.

The thing I love most about this story is that it’s a classic American success story. Faced with many obstacles, Powell succeeded through intelligence, hard work and dedication. He didn’t make excuses for why he couldn’t succeed. He didn’t stand around waiting for a government handout. He succeeded in spite of enormous obstacles. Powell in many ways represents the complete opposite of the direction our society seems to be headed, with all of the talk of income redistribution and “spreading the wealth around.”

Building a golf course by hand? Who would even dream of doing such a thing? Only a person of enormous character.

I’m putting Clearview on my list of must-plays. 

Tommy Boot, winner of the 1958 US Open passed away on Saturday. He was 92.

In a ten year span beginning in 1951, Bolt won 15 times on the PGA Tour. A member of the US Ryder Cup teams in 1955 and 1957, he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002 by the veterans committee.

Some considered his swing to be second only to Sam Snead’s for its ease and fluidity. Like Snead, that may explain his relative longevity. He didn’t start on the PGA Tour until age 34, but was able to still compete well into his fifties. He finished third at the PGA Championship in 1971 at age 55.

Unfortunately, Bolt is perhaps best remembered for his temper, earning him the nickname “Terrible Tommy.” He had a face that has been described as easily showing anger and crowds often egged him on, hoping to see him throw a club.

Bolt was self depreciating about his anger, though, once quipping “Always throw clubs ahead of you, that way you won’t waste any energy going back to pick them up.” and advising players to “Never break your driver and your putter in the same round.”

He later contended that the club throwing was as much a bit of showmanship as anything else. In a 2002 Golf Digest interview, he said:

It thrills crowds to see a guy suffer. That’s why I threw clubs so often. They love to see golf get the better of someone, and I was only too happy to oblige them. At first I threw clubs because I was angry. After a while it became showmanship, plain and simple. I learned that if you helicopter those dudes by throwing them sideways instead of overhand, the shaft wouldn’t break as easy. It’s an art, it really is.

Bolt also penned a book called “How To Keep Your Temper On The Golf Course.”

Still, many believed that his anger kept him from winning more tournaments. Ben Hogan said: “If we could’ve screwed another head on his shoulders, Tommy Bolt could have been the greatest who ever played.”

Bolt was instrumental in the creation of the Champions Tour through his participation in the inaugural Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, where he paired with Art Wall against Julius Boros and Robert De Vicenzo.

I’ve always thought of Bolt as one of the most interesting players of his age—one whom, like Don Cherry and Jimmy Demaret added extraordinary color to the formative years of the PGA Tour. I first heard of him when I heard a coaching colleague describe one of his players as a “female Tommy Bolt.” That was enough for me. I went right out and read everything I could about the guy.

Bolt was an original, and of the sort that the plain vanilla PGA Tour could occasionally use, just to spice things up.

Bill of Rights Golf uses the framework of none holes of golf to test your knowledge of the Bill of Rights.

Orville Moody has died. Moody won 21 professional events, all but one on the Senior Tour. The one exception was his 1969 US Open victory. That victory is more significant because it was the last time a player won after local and sectional qualifying.

Moody won the US Open just 15 months after ending his 14 year Army Career. His nickname on tour was “Sarge.”