I saw more of Tiger as he grew, but I never found occasion to give him advice. What am I going to tell somebody who's that good, who doesn't have the problems I had? No advice I learned from my life applied to his. We talked, though. Tiger thanked me very sincerely. That meant a lot.
Most of the discrimination I experienced came when I got older. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood in Charlotte, and everybody was treated the same. Our next-door neighbors, the Wilsons, were white, and when their kids came over to play with us and got in trouble, my mom would whip them as if they were hers. And Mrs. Wilson gave me more than one whipping, too. I believed everybody was equal, and when I began finding out in my teens that not everybody thought that way, it made it that much harder to understand, let alone accept.
I don't smile much, and I never laugh. It's just something that's in me. If you'd been through what I've been through, you wouldn't be smiling, either. Walking around smiling all the time would have made no sense. It would indicate I approved of the way I was being treated, when I damn sure didn't approve.
Larry Mowry wrote a story for your magazine years ago [March 1988] about a drive we made together from Miami to Wilmington, N.C., on tour in the '60s. It was an eye-opener for him. We were in the Deep South during a time when black men and white men didn't ride together. I had a new Buick, and when we stopped for gas in south Georgia in the middle of the night and Larry went in to get some Cokes, a police officer took exception to me being in such a nice car. We got out of there, and 20 years later, Larry remembered what I told him when we crossed the county line: "If he knew this was my car, we'd both be buried in a cotton field and never heard from again."
When I was a kid, my dad, Shug Sifford, told me, "Be a man." That didn't sound like very specific advice, but when I got caught telling a lie, he'd say, "A man doesn't lie." When I'd slough off on my chores, he said, "A man works hard." Though he didn't say as much, being a real man means obeying your conscience and being honest with yourself.
I fought on Okinawa during World War II, and right after the war I was stationed in the Philippines. One day in Manila, a buddy and I came upon a horse-drawn taxi. I'd boxed a little growing up, and my buddy bet me $5 that I couldn't knock the horse down with one punch. I hauled off and belted that horse between the eyes, and he did go down. The Filipinos who saw it beat the living hell out of us. I came out of that a lot worse off than the horse, I'll tell you that.
I once made two holes-in-one in the same competitive round at Seattle. Another time, at a tournament for local pros in Ohio, I made an ace and won the use of a Chevy for a year. In 1986, at the Johnny Mathis tournament, I came to a tee, and sitting right there was a new Buick. I knocked a 5-iron into the cup and thought I'd not only won the Buick but $100,000. But the people who sponsored the thing claimed the prize had been withdrawn, and the sign on the tee was partially torn by the time I got there. I ended up getting the car, but I had to sue to get the $100,000. I've made eight holes-in-one in my life, and all of them were in competition.
In June of this year I was given an honorary doctorate by the University of St. Andrews. It was the first time I ever went to Scotland, the first time I could afford to go, really. And I played the Old Course at St. Andrews. It was different than what I saw on TV all those years, that's for sure. Don't ask me what I shot. I didn't keep score.
I played in the U.S. Open 10 or 12 times but never played well. None of the black players back then did. We had to qualify, and getting there was a rare opportunity, your one chance. We weren't used to the courses or the atmosphere. It's hard to explain, and even harder to understand, so we'll just leave it at that.
The Masters didn't want blacks in general and didn't want me specifically. When I got on the PGA Tour, the one thing I was certain of was that I would never get invited to Augusta no matter what I did. In 1962 I shot a 67 in the second round of the Canadian Open to take the lead, and the club immediately got a phone call. The next day there was an announcement: "The Masters will not offer an automatic invitation to the winner." I don't regret not being invited to play in the Masters, I've never been to one, and all the money in the world couldn't get me down there. Because I don't want to be anywhere I'm not wanted.
The United Golfers Association had a secretary,a president and so on who went around organizing the tournaments. We had sponsors and prize money. Not much; $10,000 was a big purse. We played in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington D.C. and then the Negro National Open, which was played at different public courses. The interesting thing was, we didn't discriminate. White people played in our events, too.
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