Pros share the joy of golf
I’ve been honored to interview many women of color who are nationally recognized golf instructors or golf ambassadors for the PGA or the LPGA.
They all have one thing in common that led to their incredible list of honors and achievements: they have made golf more inclusive.
This week I had the opportunity to talk to the LPGA’S Oneda Castillo, a coveted golf coach and motivational speaker from Fayetteville, Ga., who was born and raised in Ohio and lived for many years in Buffalo.
Castillo was the recipient of the President’s Lifetime Achievement award in 2015 from former President Barack Obama for her lifelong commitment to building a stronger nation through volunteer service.
“I love sharing the joys of golf with others and especially with children,” Castillo said in a phone interview. “And I strive to be a person who could welcome people into the game and make them feel great about being there.”
Castillo’s work in golf instruction is steeped in experience. She fulfilled a personal quest to play golf in all 50 states, conquering the links in 2018 at the world famous Kapalua Golf Course in Lahaina, Hawaii, to finish her journey.
She started golfing regularly and earned status as an LPGA teaching professional in her early 40s.
“I came into golf as an adult woman and to tell you the truth there were times when I felt like I was not being taken care of as well as I should have been,” she said of her early golf experiences. “I wanted to change all that.”
Castillo in 2003 became the second African American women golfer to achieve Class A status as an LPGA Teaching and Club Professional. She is a member of the African American Golfers Hall of Fame and is still one of just a few African American women golfers to become a LPGA teaching professional.
The Presidential Award sums up her lifelong journey through golf, offering minorities the opportunity to participate through clinics and special pro
grams.
It takes a concerted, well-planned effort to encourage minorities to take up golf.
In 2018 I was honored to interview Renee Powell after she shared her extensive professional golfing, teaching and public service experience with 25 of the Northeastern New York’s PGA teaching professionals at Mohawk Golf Club. She recalled playing in the Capital Region in 1963 as a 17-year-old during a U.S. Junior Girls competition at Wolforts Roost in Albany.
Powell was the second African American woman to play on the LPGA tour. She earned her spot in 1967 and competed in her last tournament in 1980. The next African-american woman to play on the tour began her career in 1995. Progress has been extremely slow.
A year after she spoke in the Capital Region, Powell, the PGA Head Professional at Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio, was elected the first at-large director of the PGA of America Board of Directors. Her resume is stellar: Powell is a member of the PGA Hall of Fame and serves on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Trustees. She was one of seven women elected the first female honorary members in the 260-year history of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.
Powell’s main advice she gave that day to PGA Teaching Professionals: get involved.
“You need to go out and be part of the community. Join clubs and organizations. Find minority-based organizations and let them know you want them to join,” she told the PGA teaching pros. “It’s challenging, but there are ways to make it work.”
Another golf ambassador I’ve interviewed, Clemmie Perry, who established Women of Color Golf in Tampa, Florida, found a way to make it work. In the first three years of the organization, she introduced 300 women — many of them women of color — to the game by creating a program through the local community college through a unique sponsorship with the Tampa Sports Authority, which oversees operation of three courses and the area’s First Tee Program.
“As a minority woman, you aren’t going to go up to a golf course and say I want to take lessons. It just doesn’t happen that way too often,” she said when I reached out to her for an interview back in 2017. “We created a pathway for women to enter that was structured and provided that access.”
Fall and winter is the time when New York’s and the Capital Region’s PGA organizations gather to plan for next season. And so do women’s golf organizations — including LPGA Amateurs and the Northeastern Women’s Golf Association, established in 1929. Now is the time to incorporate specific inclusion efforts in next year’s programs.
“Our mission is to further the advancement of the game of golf, to recognize and develop skilled amateur women golfers, to promote good sportsmanship and friendly competition and to foster the best traditions of the game of golf since 1929,” the NEWGA website states.
Inclusion should be a part of a mission — for NEWGA and all golf organizations.