Peete: A true rags to riches legend
in 1943, one of nine children. After his parents divorced his father moved to the Florida town of Pahokee, remarried and had 10 more children.
Calvin left school aged 13 so that he could contribute to the family’s hard-pressed finances. He joined his father, a vegetable picker, in the corn and bean fields but had to avoid heavy work because of his recently injured arm.
However, Peete was always resourceful and scraped together the money to buy a Plymouth station wagon which he used to travel the east coast selling clothes and jewellery to migrant workers.
In order to become a successful salesman he faked a flamboyance that did not come naturally. He also took precautions against being robbed of two diamonds he had acquired by hiding them in specially drilled holes in his teeth; ‘‘a travelling man’s safe’’, he called it.
After his late conversion to golf it was a long road to becoming a professional.
He started doing his selling at night to use the daylight to practise, read golf instruction books by the likes of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus, bought gloves from a man who gave him advice on his swing and even made films of his own strokes that were minutely studied.
Still it took him nine years and two failures at the PGA tour school before he was able to turn professional, aged 32, in 1975.
Black golfers were still rare – the PGA’s ‘‘Caucasian only’’ rule was not lifted until 1961 – and more than once he was met at clubhouse doors by officials who assumed he was there as a caddy. Peete’s game was low on risk but high on accuracy – he was regularly among the leading players for hitting the most accurate shots.
Peete won his first tournament in 1979 and went on to win 11 more, including four in 1982. His biggest win was in the Tournament Players Championship in 1985 at Ponte Vedra beach in Florida.