The planned outdoor ceremonies would have to be moved inside, into the clubhouse, where the likes of Papwa could not tread. And so it was, in a game of fair play and integrity, Papwa was barred from attending his own prize-giving. Instead, in a downpour, he was quickly presented with the trophy beside the 18th green. The evening was lit up by smiling Indian faces, by photographers' flashbulbs, and, as if in benediction, by forks of lightning in the sky. Then the whites sought refuge in the clubhouse, where the official celebrations got underway. Papwa and his fans made their way home.
The precise details of this tale have been a matter of much dispute over the years. Some said Papwa was handed the trophy through the clubhouse window. (He wasn't.) Some blamed the legendary golfer Gary Player for not speaking up in Papwa's defense. (Player wasn't there.) For a long time, Durban Country Club officials attempted to portray the outdoor ceremony as a magnanimous gesture -- "it would not be fair for Papwa to go inside to get his trophy, out of sight of his enormous following," according to the club history. "It certainly was not a slight to Papwa -- rather one of consideration to enable his fans to see him in his moment of glory." Another rationale was that the outdoor prize-giving was mandated by the Natal Golf Union. Yet another blamed the government: Letting Papwa into the clubhouse would have been illegal under the terms of the Group Areas Act and would have put the club's liquor license in jeopardy.
"I've read so many stories about what happened, and nobody's ever got it right," says Bobby Verwey, Player's brother-in-law, who finished third in the tournament that day. "Papwa was a friend of mine, the loveliest guy you'd ever know. In those days they gave out prizes to the top-five finishers. And the five of us got together and decided to have the prize-giving outside, because Papwa wasn't allowed inside. It wasn't just Papwa -- we all got our prizes outside. There was no prize-giving inside. And it was barely even raining. I don't think we even had an umbrella."
Another man who witnessed the event is Murray Leyden, now the genial golf captain of the club, who was 9 at the time. "I remember the day vividly," he says. "I remember running from every tee to the green to get the best spot. Papwa was very, very popular with the Indian community, and everyone came out in droves to watch him. I remember his grip -- I couldn't believe it. At the end there was pouring and pelting rain. Papwa was given the trophy outside. And then everyone went inside. I really didn't understand why."
Two years ago, Leyden was involved in the club's decision to place a plaque on the outside wall of the clubhouse, facing the 18th green, honoring Papwa for being "the first person of colour to win a professional golf tournament in South Africa." The plaque concludes: "We salute the talent of this self-taught legend of the game." A ceremony was held, attended by Rajen and Papwa's widow, Suminthra. The club apologized for what had happened four decades earlier.
"Although it could have been beyond the control of the club," continues Leyden, "or to do with potential issues, or to do with legal issues, the laws of the land, we regret that it happened. It's important in a new South Africa to right the wrongs of the past, which is why we erected the plaque. It had been a festering sore for the Indian community. A lot of wounds have now been healed." (One club member, however, tells me that he thinks the club has merely done "the bare minimum." Aside from the plaque and a small, framed caricature of Papwa drawn by Leyden's father, there is little evidence of the man at Durban Country Club. The corridor leading out to the 18th green is lined with photographs from bygone events. Papwa is in only one of them, when he finished runner-up in the 1963 South African Open. A planned memorial room in the clubhouse, filled with memorabilia of Papwa's life, never happened. Papwa gets an unsympathetic page in the 1982 club history, blaming the victim for the misfortunes that befell him by concluding: "Sadly, brilliant golfer that he was, Papwa seemed to lack the determination and discipline to remain at the top." Today Durban Country Club -- "where people matter and values count" -- makes no mention on its website of its most famous former employee, homegrown champion and local hero.)
Whatever the truth of the conflicting details of the prize-giving, the incident was just one of countless apartheid assaults that Papwa endured. But as a potent symbol of exclusion, it turned into a firestorm, starting with press commentary at home and abroad. "In any normal land the treatment of this fine player would be considered an insult to him and an acute embarrassment to everyone else," said the defiant Rand Daily Mail the day after the event. E.S. Reddy, a former director of the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid, wrote in 1998: "The photograph of 'Papwa' receiving his trophy in heavy rain outside appeared in many newspapers around the world and greatly helped the boycott of apartheid sport." Even if nobody today can remember exactly what happened, it was a day that golf would never forget.
Papwa remained silent about the snub -- and about all the indignities he was subjected to. "He never spoke out," says Rajen. "He never lost his cool, never raised his voice, never said anything harsh. He was a humble man." Papwa carried on as best he could. He could only rarely afford to travel internationally. His first trip abroad hadn't come until he was 30. A Beachwood member, Graham Gordon Wulff, had given Papwa a job at his cosmetics factory in Durban, with a generous salary and afternoons off for golf. (Wulff would make a fortune from his most popular invention: Oil of Olay.) One day in 1959, Wulff decided to take Papwa's predicament into his own hands: He would fly him out of Africa, in his tiny Piper Comanche 250 ZS-DRT four-seater, to have a crack at the British Open at Muirfield. They flew past the snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, survived a storm over the Sahara desert, and posed for photographs sitting on camels in front of the Egyptian pyramids, arriving in Edinburgh after a dozen stops along the way. In the event -- his first of any stature -- Papwa missed the cut but amazingly won his next tournament, the Dutch Open at Haagsche Golf Club. He and Wulff, now 91 -- "my dad's guardian angel," says Rajen -- went home to Durban to a heroes' welcome. "There were huge crowds of people lining the streets to see Papwa," recalls his widow, Suminthra, in the documentary film "Papwa: The Lost Dream of a South African Golfing Legend." Suminthra, who first met Papwa on her wedding day -- they had an arranged marriage -- was proud of what her "poor caddie boy" had achieved.
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