Where we once roamed: black caddies are all but extinct at major tournaments. (Challenge).

Pete McDaniel says it best: "Like the unknown soldiers, many African Americans who contributed to the growth of the game [of golf] in this country lie buried in history's tomb."

John Shippen, who played in the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 1895, was a member of the work crew that built the famous Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York. He would later become a caddie and an assistant at the club. Robert "Hard Rock" Robinson's reputation as Pinehurst's most knowledgeable caddie is legendary in North Carolina. And Joseph Bartholomew was one of the country's first golf course architects. He designed the Now Orleans public course originally named Pontchartrain Park, which was later renamed for him. These are all black men who have influenced the sport in some way and who have been all but forgotten. They were also caddies, a service industry that has helped the country's most famous golfers. Once, caddies were all young black men. Today, you would be lucky to find one. Not even Tiger Woods uses a black caddie.

In fact, these men, along with others too numerous to mention in this article, would have remained forgotten if not for the efforts of sports journalist Pete McDaniel, author of Uneven Lies: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf (The American Golfer Inc., $50). Did you know the first patent for a wooden golf tee was held by a black man? In 1899, the U.S. Patent Office granted it to Dr. George F. Grant, a successful dentist residing in Boston at the time. McDaniel has unearthed the rich history of our participation in the game, including the disappearance of the black caddie. According to McDaniel, Shippen was one of many African Americans to work in various service positions at golf clubs around the country, a position that included the responsibility of being a caddie to the members of the club. At a time when job opportunities for blacks at these private clubs were limited, caddying and having other service-providing responsibilities were highly respected positions.

"It was a viable alternative to long hours in the tobacco fields or tannery," says McDaniel.

According to John Merchant, a former board member of the United States Golf Association, "caddying offered African Americans the opportunity to make money, do healthy, hard, outdoor work, and enable these [young men] to learn the game. Golf offered an excellent opportunity for [these men] to become players ..."

"Each caddie had to go through certain training, and that was how you were ranked," adds McDaniel, who caddied as a young adult. "It paid to be experienced and it also paid to be in good with the caddie supervisor. Caddying taught me a really strong work ethic and gave me a sense of independence. And it also began my life's long love affair with golf."

Back in the day, a good caddie was extremely valued. He knew his game and was very instrumental in the success or failure of a golfer participating in a tournament. These men, the majority of whom were teenagers, arrived on the course before sunup and typically carried two golf bags for 54 holes, or until the end of the day. In the 1920s and 1930s, caddies might work all day for a $1--minimum wage standards at the time. By the 1950s, the wages went up. A caddie could receive $2 for a single loop around the course or about 50 cents an hour, and $3 to carry two bags of golf equipment. Today, caddies can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars if working for the right golfer.

But the advent of the golf cart in the 1960s heralded the end of an era for caddies. As the civil rights movement gained momentum and jobs in a variety of industries opened up, young African American teenagers and adults found higher-paying jobs in factories, manufacturing companies, offices, and in many other positions that were traditionally off limits to us. By the early 1970s, many caddie programs at these clubs were all but eliminated. However, the end of blacks dominating the caddie industry seemed to have come in 1983 when the Augusta National Golf Course stopped requiring its Masters participants to use club caddies, who were always black. As a result, players were given the option to select their own caddies, and these new caddies were overwhelmingly white.

"This marked the end of seeing black caddies on television," explains McDaniel. "It was the only time black caddies were treated well and recognized for their role in the sport."

[Four years ago], only one out of the top 50 golf players (Hal Sutton) employs an African American caddie (Freddie Burns). Pete McDaniel breaks it down to dollars and cents. "Last year, there were 55 millionaires on the [PGA] tour, and caddies make 10% of a player's earnings and a bonus if the golfer wins the tournament. Fifty-four white caddies made $100,000; only one black caddie made this amount."

Private clubs have also witnessed a drastic decline in the number of black caddies. McDaniel partially attributes this to the ills of modern society: street life.

There are still a few African American caddies, most of them middle-aged or older men, who work in mostly Southern clubs. But the professional numbers continue to dwindle. Today, most caddies are white high school or college students, and many more are players themselves. As a result of bypassing the opportunity to caddy, aspiring African American golfers are missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime: to network and improve their game as golfers by watching and assisting other, more established, players. According to McDaniel, many country club caddies may have peered through the fence hole but few had the courage or sense of adventure or sheer desperation to explore greener pastures. And while black caddies are virtually extinct on tours, they are not extinct in many country clubs. Our presence in the sport, though drastically lessened, will remain if only through the presence of Tiger Woods. McDaniel hopes that in a generation, those players coming up in the ranks of junior golf will take the place of legends like Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford, Ted Rhodes, and Bill Spiller--all of whom were introduced to the game of golf as caddies.

RELATED ARTICLE: A salute to the pioneers.

"Some of the most successful African American players got their start as caddies," writes Pete McDaniel in his book Uneven Lies: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf (The American Golfer Inc., $50) "Many others were lifelong fixtures around the caddie fixtures, earning minimum wage for maximum labor. Some Were promoted to caddiemaster, middle management in title only. Others were employed by the club in various domestic capacities. They cooked, cleaned, shined shoes, and served the members with loyalty normally reserved for family. In the South, where the industrial revolution had less of an immediate impact, especially for job-seeking minorities, the country club provided opportunities. The work also was clean, honest, and often satisfying."

Explore the fascinating world of caddies and the legendary men who served proudly in a sport that didn't recognize them as equal, This fabulous coffee table book is a mixture of classic photographs blended with great narration, offering little tidbits of insight into the world of golf from the African American perspective. And while public golf courses served as the primary avenue to the game for blacks, private black-owned country clubs such as Shady Rest and Mapledake set a standard of self-reliance in the 1920s that resonated into the 1990s, Through the pages of Uneven Lies, we discover why the successes of African Americans in establishing even the smallest foothold in golf came at the expense of overcoming great odds. Read about men such as Bill Spiller, who McDaniel says was more instrumental in opening up the game to people of color than any other player. Spiller spearheaded a rebellion that caused the PGA of America to eventually rescind its Caucasian-only clause.

The presence of many of the pioneers is felt today. In the forward, Tiger Woods writes: "The first time I drove down Magnolia Lane, I was not thinking about Bobby Jones or all [that] the Masters stood for. I was thinking about all the great African American players who never got a chance to play there That I was able to win there, I believe, brought a little bit of vindication for them."

--The Editors