USGA Honors Two N.J. Clubs Among African-american Pioneers

Two New Jersey golf courses, Freeway Golf Course in Sicklerville and the defunct Shady Rest Golf and Country Club in Scotch Plains, and two other clubs are being honored as part of the USGA’s newest exhibit “More Than A Game.”

The exhibit focuses on how the creation of African-American golf clubs positively impacted the community despite the pervasive prejudice and racism of the Jim Crow era.

The exhibit opened on Feb. 22 at the USGA Museum in Far Hills and will run for two years.

Freeway, an NJSGA-member club, became the first 18-hole course owned by African Americans when it opened in 1967 and is the home of Bill Bishop, a member of the National Black Golf Hall of Fame.

Shady Rest was the home course of John Shippen, the first African American to play in a U.S. Open (1896) and also the first American-born golf professional. Since 1964, the municipally-owned Scotch Hills Golf Course , also an NJSGA-club, has been operating at the site of Shady Rest, the first African-American owned golf and country club.

The two other golf courses featured in the exhibit are the Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio. Founded in 1946, Clearview is the only public golf course in the country designed, built and owned by an African American, and the Langston Golf Course in Washington, D.C.

Langston is home to the Wake-Robin and Royal Golf Clubs, the oldest African American clubs still in existence.

Dan Levinson, club champion at Bayonne Golf Club and low amateur in last year’s NJSGA/NJPGA Senior Open, and his Moxie Pictures company produced a video entitled “More Than A Game,” which tells the story of the Clearview Golf Club. Levinson’s previous work includes the award-winning documentary “Uneven Fairways,” which premiered on Golf Channel in 2009.

MORE THAN A GAME VIDEO SHADY REST VIDEO SHADY REST ARTICLE

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Curated by Susan Wasser, the USGA Museum’s assistant director, the exhibit is part of the USGA’s ongoing commitment to attracting a diverse audience to the game. This retrospective is one of the initiatives surrounding the African-American Golf History Archive, which was formed in 2010 by the USGA and The PGA of America to collect, preserve and celebrate the history of African Americans in golf. “More Than A Game” is the third exhibit in the USGA Museum since 2010 to celebrate minorities in golf.

“Our exhibition reflects on the lives of the pioneers in African-American golf history and how their courage and convictions changed the game,” said Wasser. “As the world’s leading institution for the study and celebration of golf history, the USGA Museum is a great resource to preserve and share the African-American golf experience in this way.”