HONOLULU, HAWAII |
The presence
at Waialae Country Club of
Joseph
Bramlett
as the PGA Tour’s first African-
American member since
Tiger Woods
,
brought to mind
Charlie Sifford
’s 1992
autobiography. “What golf needs,” he
wrote, “is a black man with a great deal
of personal magnetism and a whale of a
game who can demonstrate that blacks
can fit into the game.” Five years later,
as if to order, Woods answered the call.
A sensational Masters win of 1997
prompted Augusta National’s first black
competitor,
Lee Elder
, to predict boldly:
“After this, we will have a situation
where no one will even turn their head
to notice when a black person walks to
the first tee.” Events since then, how-
ever, would suggest that Elder’s predic-
tion was more than a little optimistic.
Yet the 22-year-old Stanford gradu-
ate publicly acknowledged a debt to
Woods. “Having Tiger there was an
amazing role model for me, because
I truly identified with the way he did
things,” Bramlett said. “Seeing he was
somebody like myself, definitely helped.
I’m just one of several kids coming up
right now. Hopefully, I can help change
things further.”
Bramlett added: “By the time I’m
done and sitting in a rocking chair, I
think that, hopefully, this game will look
a little different.” As it happened, the
high-profile rookie played his second
round in the Sony Open Saturday, the
birthday of another man with a dream,
It wasn’t your normal Wednesday
at the Sony Open. For the first time in
the history of the event, Pacific storms
caused the cancellation of the pre-tour-
nament pro-am. It meant bitter disap-
pointment for amateurs who had paid
up to $8,000 for the privilege of playing
alongside a professional partner in a
$500,000 charity fundraiser.
But all was not lost. With rains
lashing Waialae, tournament and PGA
Tour officials arranged an impromptu
gathering at the Kahala Resort Hotel
close by Wednesday morning, where
the out-of-luck amateurs were treated
to time with the pros who engaged in
a Q&A session and happily posed for
photographs. Then on Thursday eve-
ning, the pro-am banquet went ahead
as planned. And as if by way of acknowl-
edging the power of mother nature,
entertainment at the event was provided
by the celebrated rhythm and blues
group, “Earth, Wind and Fire.”
It has to do, no doubt, with being 40.
Surrounded by 26 Tour rookies at the
Sony Open,
Jim Furyk
admitted he no
longer recognized the younger faces in
the locker room, certainly not like he did
in his rookie season of 1994. “Back then I
knew everyone, because I played with all
the young guys either in college or on the
mini-tours,” he said. “And while they may
not have known me, I knew the regular
guys from seeing them on TV.”
Furyk, who was 78th on the money
list at the end of his first year on Tour,
Joseph Bramlett is the first
African-American PGA Tour
member since Tiger Woods.
went on: “But now that I’m getting
older, I don’t know a lot of the young
kids coming up. I don’t pay much atten-
tion to the scores for the mini-tours or,
to be honest, even our Tour, the Nation-
wide or the Champions Tour. I don’t look
Monday morning to check the scores
out, so the names aren’t always the
freshest to me.
“You meet them, you play with them,
you see them hitting balls on the range,
you see them with their caddies, and af-
ter a few months, you start to get a feel
as to who everyone is. Especially when
you see a guy play well; you see the
same name on the board two or three
events in a row.
“There is a lot of buzz around certain
players like that, so you learn pretty
quickly who everyone is.”
John Daly
managed to find a silver
lining in the early washout at Waialae,
using the time off to concentrate on
homeschool with his 7-year-old son.
“I have a different structure on my life
now,” he said Friday. “Little John is in
first grade and needs a bit of attention.
I’m tickled green about Pollywog and
Tommy Tadpole but I’m having trouble
with the word t-h-a-t. Though I’m on
him pretty hard, I keep telling him that
three or four hours a day with me is
better than seven hours at a school.”
Daly missed another cut as a spon-
sor’s exemption. His 36-hole total was
even par. l
Dermot Gilleece
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