BELLINGHAM, Wash. --- Arguably the greatest achievement by a Western Washington University student-athlete took place on July 18, 1959, when Bill Wright became the first African American to win a tournament conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA, founded in 1894) as he captured the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championships held at the Wellshire Golf Course near Denver, Colorado.
 
Or, as the USGA put it at the time, "The new Amateur Public Links Champion of the United States Golf Association is William A. Wright, of Seattle, Washington, a Negro and the first of his race to win a national championship in golf."

It came during an era when African Americans were not welcome either in segregated country clubs or in the top amateur and professional ranks.

In the match-play final, Wright bested Frank Campbell, a former professional who had been reinstated as an amateur, 3 and 2. In the semifinals, Wright amazed the crowd with his Spalding Autograph putter as he one-putted 23 of the 36 holes to beat 1957 champion Don Essig III, 1 up.
 
Wright, who never trailed in any of his six matches, made six straight birdies on holes 4 thru 9 each day of match play at the championship. He had qualified for match play by placing in the top 64 (63rd) in medal play, shooting 149 to make the cut by one stroke, among 2,434 entries.
 
So, at 23 years of age, the slender 6-foot-2 Wright, a senior at then Western Washington College of Education, was crowned the Public Links champion. Not only was he the first black athlete to win the tournament, but also the first African American to compete in the championship since it began in 1922.
 
"My victory in 1959 was a wonderful thing that happened to me and I haven't forgotten it," said Wright in a 2012 USGA video. "There was a lot of other things going on that really didn't bother me at the time. I wanted to get to that tournament and I wanted to play my best.
 
"The golf course was playing about the same as the ones I had played on at Seattle and Portland, and when I practiced I saw that this is something that I could do.
 
"I played Don Essig in the semifinals and I had heard that he was one heck of a golfer and that he had won that tournament before. I played and it was one of those days that I played really well. I had 23 one putts. I needed all of the one putts in that match.
 
"I played Frank Campbell in the final. I birdied the first two holes and I played very good the whole rest of the round, and he played well, and I won, 3 and 2.
 
"I felt super. I felt good that I got there and won … Everything that I did to play well and then to win, that was a very important thing for me and it pleases me that it happened."
 
When he arrived in Denver for the PubLinks tournament, Wright said his only goal was to justify the struggle it took to get there.
 
On the second day of stroke play, Wright three-putted the 18th hole to finish with a 36-hole score of 149.
 
"I was thinking that I'd missed the cut," he told Anthony Cotton of the Denver Post in a 2016 story. "Then a guy came up and was all excited about making it. I asked him what he shot and he said 150. I said, 'I don't think that'll do it.'
 
"He said, 'No, I'm already in.' I went to the leaderboard and there I was."
 
Having accomplished his primary goal, which was to qualify for match play, Wright said he began to realize he had a pretty good chance to do more. Playing with just 12 clubs, two under the legal limit, Wright began routing his opponents.
 
Since his stroke-play score was second to last among the qualifiers, in the first round of match play he had to face the second-best player. Wright birdied the first hole and parred the second and third holes. He then birdied the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth holes, something that he did every single day."
 
Wright breezed through the first four rounds of match play to reach the 36-hole semifinals. And the rest was history.
  
A Black man did not win a PGA Tournament until 1964 when Pete Brown finished first at the Waco Turner Open in Texas. The next two African-American winners of USGA Tournaments were Alton Duhon (the 1982 U.S. Senior Amateur) and Tiger Woods (the 1991 and 1993 U.S. Junior Amateurs).

Change Is Slow, But Some Special Moments

Wright's PubLinks title earned him an exemption into the U.S. Amateur in mid-September of 1959 at the Broadmoor Country Club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In a 2009 story, Golfweek writer Adam Schupak described what happened to Wright the day prior to the tourney.

The other contestants from Washington, all of whom were white, refused to fly or practice with him.

Wright, a solitary figure on the putting green, figured he would tee off as a single. That's when a distinguished-looking elderly man approached Wright and asked him to join a practice-round threesome.

"He said to me, 'I know what's going on here,'" Wright remembered.

So, Wright played with Charles "Chick" Evans, the 1916 U.S. Amateur and 1920 U.S. Open champion. The other two members of the group: Deane Beman, the future commissioner of the PGA Tour; and Jack Nicklaus, who would win that week and become the greatest player of his generation. Afterward, Evans told Wright to get a locker and dress there for dinner.

"It's all been arranged," Evans said.

He invited Wright to sit next to him at the head table with Walker Cup members and former champions … During dinner, Wright's fellow Washingtonians, unrepentant but with a look of acceptance, approached him to shake hands.

"(Evans) was 'Mr. Golf' and yet he went out of his way to protect me," Wright said of Evans. "Those types of things seldom ever happen in your life."

Another Run For PubLinks Title
 
Wright made another serious run at the PubLinks title in 1961 at Detroit, Michigan. (Rackham Golf Club), losing in the semifinals. But he got over the defeat quickly.
 
Had he won, Wright would have had to postpone his wedding scheduled for the next day in Chicago. He arrived on time and he and wife Ceta, who was a school teacher, were married for 60 years.
 
Wright turned pro in the early 1960s but didn't have the financial backing to play the Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour full time (organization had a Caucasians only clause until 1961). He did compete in the 1966 U.S. Open and later played in five U.S. Senior Opens.

Wright played in at least 17 tournaments from 1960 to 1974 and in nine PGA Tour Champions events (tournaments for golfers at least 50 years old) from 1988 to 1995.

"We (African Americans) just didn't seem to get the exemptions that would let us into tournaments," said Wright. He drifted in and out of the Tour trying to qualify for tournaments, but without a sponsor and sleeping at the YMCA, life was tough and demoralizing.
 
His wife Ceta remembers her husband's frustration during the 1960s.
 
"We never doubted his ability, but we did notice that there were people who didn't have his game, but who had money and therefore two or three years to settle in and feel comfortable on the Tour," she told Caryl Phillips in a 2009 story for Golf Magazine. "But for us it was always save and try to qualify, save and try to qualify."
 
So, Wright made use of his degree in education from Western and taught elementary school for nine years in the Watts district of Los Angeles, including during the race riots of 1965. Later, he began detailing cars before acquiring a leasing business and owning a Lincoln Mercury dealership in Pasadena. But golf remained his passion.  
Unfortunately, though toppling a racial barrier, discrimination still cost Wright a real chance at a professional career.
 
"Maybe if I had stayed out there like some of them, I'd have done more," Wright told Phillips. "But some of the things we had to deal with were not easy. Playing with guys who wouldn't shake hands with you but who would smile and say things like, 'I think that Jim Dent is the best of all you guys.' Did I say to them, 'I think that Jack Nicklaus is the best of all you guys?' It was tough, and in the end I decided I had to make a living."
 
Later Wright was a golf professional for over 25 years at The Lakes Golf Course in El Segundo, California, teaching and mentoring. For nine years (2000-09) he also operated a golf club repair shop there.
 
Wright's Early Years
 
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 4, 1936, William Alfred Wright was the only child of Bob Wright, a mail carrier, and Madeline (Smith) Wright, a social worker. He called them his most vital life influences. When Bill was 12, the family moved to Portland, Oregon, and then to Seattle, Washington.
 
From the age of five, Wright took violin lessons until age 14 when his passion for sports prevailed. Then he laid down his violin and focused on honing his golf skills.
 
What prompted Wright's change of heart was his father taking him to the Jefferson Park Golf Course on Beacon Hill. His parents both golfed and belonged to the Fir State Golf Club, which was founded in 1947 to promote access to golf within the minority community. Bill was one of the first participants in Fir State's junior golf program. Within a year he was the city's Junior champion.
 
Initially the efforts of Wright's father to get his son to play golf were met with some resistance.
 
"He knew he couldn't get me to play golf because of how it was looked at in the black community," said Wright in Cotton's Denver Post story. "I also played the violin at the time. And I would have to go through the parks in Seattle carrying my golf clubs and my violin, and it was real hard not to get hurt doing that."
 
But the father used some reverse psychology to motivate his son.
 
"After I played for the first time, he introduced me to the city's junior champion," Wright recalled. "My father said, 'Don't worry, Bill, you can't beat him.' I got all hot under the collar. I said, 'Golf? If I take it up, I'll beat him in a year.'"
 
He did just that.
 
Wright counts World Golf Hall of Famer Charlie Sifford, who desegregated the PGA Tour, as a source of inspiration during his youth. Sifford was often a guest at the Wright household during visits to Seattle and amazed Bill with his practice routine.
 
Wright said that every time Sifford was there, he and his dad would watch him all day long as he practiced chip shots, putting, and whatever else he needed to work on.
 

Sweet Swing Came From Legendary Sam Snead
 
How did Wright develop that swing which was so much fun to watch?
 
The legendary Sam Snead was his favorite pro golfer, and whenever Snead played in the Northwest, Wright followed him around and studied his swing.
 
Wright told how if Snead played in Portland, he and his mother would drive there and watch him all day for five or six days. Then Snead would come to Seattle, and they would watch him there. And then they would watch him in Vancouver (Canada).

In a 2009 story by Seattle Times' columnist Jerry Brewer, Wright recalled a meeting with Snead several years later in the late 1960s.
 
Snead saw Wright watching him putt during a tournament in Iowa. Snead was perfecting a new technique, a croquet-like style in which he straddled the ball.
 
"Do you want to learn?" Snead asked Wright.
 
After that tournament, Snead played nine holes to teach Wright his putting form, and on the fifth hole, he said, "You remind me of a young fellow who used to follow me in the Northwest."
 
Wright was shocked his idol remembered and confirmed it was him.
 
"Why didn't you ever ask for an autograph or something?" Snead wondered.
 
"That was a different time, a different day and a different place," Wright said.
 
"I've changed," Snead replied.
 
"Obviously, you've changed because you would've never asked me to play golf," Wright said.
 
Then they laughed, two men of different races united by the game of golf and a title that guarantees everlasting respect.
 
Champion.
 
Persevering
 
In the 1950s, because of the color of his skin, Wright was not allowed to carry a handicap, play in men's club events or play in the Seattle City Amateur.
 
In 1954 after finally convincing the city tournament administrator to let them play, Wright and his father were given their first opportunity to compete in the Seattle City Amateur. Bill won and his father finished third (he later played in the 1963 PubLinks). The doors opened and Wright was afforded the opportunity to play in more tournaments.
 
Wright enjoyed other sports as well, especially basketball. A graduate of Franklin High School, he was a third-team all-state hoops player as a senior in 1954, helping the Quakers win their first state title. Wright also played AAU basketball on a 1956 Westside Ford team that featured long-time friend Elgin Baylor, who went on to become one of the game's all-time greats.
 
Wright spent one quarter at the University of Washington before Husky basketball coach Tippy Dye told him he did not want to have the first African American player on his team. Wright immediately began looking for a new school. 
 
On To Western
 
Wright transferred to then Western Washington College of Education because he and Dean C.W. "Bill" McDonald, a former UW player who had been Western's basketball coach until 1955, had developed a friendship.
 
At Western during the 1958-59 season, Wright helped the Viking basketball team to a 14-8 record, averaging a team-high 12.5 points per game to earn second-team all-Evergreen Conference honors.
 
In the spring of 1960, he took medalist honors at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national golf tournament. His 72-hole score of 285 earned him first-team NAIA All-America recognition.
 
In a 2009 article "Wright & Wronged: The Story of African-American Golfer Bill Wright," for Golf Magazine by Caryl Phillips, Wright told a story about his time at Western.
 
"You know, the golf coach (John Kulbitski) sat me down and told me that if anything happened on campus that upset me or wasn't right then I should come and tell him and he would deal with it," said Wright. "But he let me know that if anything happened down in Bellingham, then there wasn't much that he could do. It turns out that Negroes, as we said back then, on their way from California to relocate in Canada had been arrested in Bellingham for simply looking in shop windows."
 
Despite the fact that he was the State amateur champion, Wright was not made to feel welcome while practicing with the rest of the college golf team on the grounds of the Bellingham Golf and Country Club. When his coach told him that the country club was about to withdraw privileges to the college team, Wright decided to practice by himself at a scrappy nine-hole facility (Lakeway Golf Course) nearby. All talk of the college golf team being barred from the country club was soon dropped.
 
Wright's Public Links championship along with his other accomplishments led to him being among the first seven inductees into the WWU Athletics Hall of Fame that began in 1968. Later named Western's Golfer of the Century, Wright also is enshrined in the USGA Museum in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, and is a member of the African American Golfers, Pacific Northwest Golf Association, PGA Southern California Section and Seattle Public Schools Athletics Hall of Fames.
 
On Oct. 10, 2009, The First Tee of Greater Seattle, the USGA and the Jefferson Park Golf Course celebrated "Bill Wright Day."
 
"The game of golf is fortunate to have someone such as Bill Wright," said John Bodenhamer, Executive Director of the Washington State Golf Association at the time. "His integrity is something that is having an impact on the game across the decades."
 
Pioneer And Role Model
 
Immediately following Wright's win at the 1959 PubLinks and receiving his trophy and medal, tournament officials put him on the phone with a Seattle journalist. The reporter's first question was, "How does it feel to be the first black to win a national tournament?"
 
Wright threw the phone down … He wasn't angry as just so much lost in the celebration that he had not considered the bigger picture. It hadn't occurred to him to think of his victory in any terms other than golf. After composing himself, Wright called back and gave a thoughtful, gracious interview.
 
"That was how I felt inside," said Wright in a 2009 story for USGA Insider by Media Relations Director Pete Kowalski. "I wasn't mad. I wanted to be black. I wanted to be the winner. I wanted to be all those things. It just hit (me) what other people were thinking (about me being the first black winner), and I was just playing golf."
 
"He often told me that his goal was simply to be the best golfer," said wife Ceta of her husband's Publinks accimplishment,
 
Asked by Kowalski what winning that championship has meant to him, Wright said, "It means that I was playing well at the time, but it also meant that someone else could come along and play in the tournament. It didn't make a difference if they were young or old or anything - they could play, and they'd have a chance to win. I am proud now, if you ask me. I have been for many years. I was able to at least give an image to kids like that."
 
While it has taken time for the significance to sink in, being the first African-American USGA champion now has a special place in Wright's career.
 
In May of 2009, Western played host to the NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championships at the Loomis Trail Golf Club near Blaine, Wash. It was a school first and still the only time that has happened.
 
At the pre-tourney banquet held at the Semiahmoo Resort, Wright was honored and presented with a plaque by USGA President Jim Vernon commemorating the upcoming 50th anniversary of his PubLinks victory.
 
Vernon began his remarks, saying, "Fifty years ago, Bill Wright, a 23-year-old senior at Western, won the United States Amateur Public Links Championship. Bill, at the time, didn't want to be recognized as the first African American to win a USGA national championship, but it's a role he accepts and understands.
 
"You have to remember - 1959, things were a little bit different in this country. It was only five years before that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Brown vs. Board of Education banning segregation in public schools. It was only three years before that Martin Luther King Jr. led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and it was five years before the United States passed the Civil Rights Act legislation.
 
"Teaching and the game of golf are intrinsically linked," Vernon continued. "Regardless of age or skill level, you are a student. And, as golfers will tell you, lessons learned on the course translate well to life.
 
"It was never Bill's plan to become a pioneer or a role model in the game of golf. Those roles were thrust upon him because of the times in which he lived."
 

The racial climate has changed, but change is an imperfect process.
 
Wright would like to see more blacks in the game. It is interesting to note that only two black male athletes have won USGA titles since: Alton Duhon, winner of the 1982 Senior Amateur; and Tiger Woods, who has won Junior, Amateur and Open titles, three times each.
 
Sixty years ago, Wright shook up a sport that all too often resisted change.
 
"Things have changed. Views have changed," said Wright in a 2012 story for the USGA by David Shefter.
 
In his piece on Wright, Caryl Phillips states how Wright would illustrate the "problem" by rubbing the four fingers of his right hand against the back of his left hand.
 
"He accompanies this gesture with a winsome smile that barely masks a reservoir of pain occasioned by years of subtle (and not so subtle) insults that he has been forced to first absorb, and then rationalize, and then purge himself of. This frustrating process is an inextricable part of being black in America and of trying to achieve while shouldering the burden of racial prejudice. The story of American sport is littered with narratives of men and women who, under this burden, stooped and stumbled but ultimately triumphed …
 
Phillips concludes with:
 
That he remains frustrated for himself, for his father … for all of the black golfers he played with and befriended. It is also clear that he works hard to keep his frustration in check. And that's the true tragedy of race in America. Beyond the triumph of what was achieved, one is always tempted to speculate about what might have been had it not been for "the problem."
 
Soon after his PubLinks victory, Wright's mother, Madeline, wrote a letter to her son.
 
It began: "TO A CHAMPION: You are now a national champion with all the glory and fanfare, but with all the responsibilities. Responsibilities to yourself and to the world."
 
Bill Wright accepted and fulfilled those responsibilities.

Wright, who suffered a debilitating stroke in January of 2017, died on February 19, 2021, at Los Angeles, California. He was 84 years old.
 

 Presented by Paul Madison who served 48 years as sports information director at WWU from 1966 to 2015. He is now in his eighth year as the school's Athletics Historian.
 

Jefferson Park Golf Course renamed Bill Wright Golf Complex at Jefferson Park

African American trailblazer lends name to Seattle's oldest municipal course

7/11/2024 2:31:00 PM

​​​​​​By: Paul Madison, WWU Athletics Historian BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Jefferson Park Golf Course, Seattle's oldest public golf venue, was recently renamed after one of Western Washington University's greatest student-athletes Bill Wright.

Seattle Parks and Recreation announced at a meeting in late April that it had changed the name to the Bill Wright Golf Complex at Jefferson Park in honor of Wright, an African American who competed on the layout just south of downtown Seattle as a youngster.

Jefferson Park consists of a regulation 18-hole course, a 9-hole par-3 course, driving range and practice area. It was the facility on which former Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour star and 1992 Masters Tournament winner Fred Couples honed his game as a youth.

But long before Couples flourished at Jefferson Park, which recently celebrated its 109th anniversary, William "Bill" Wright left an indelible mark.

On July 18, 1959, Wright, who passed away four years ago at 84, became the first African American to win a tournament conducted by the United States Golf Association, founded in 1894, when he captured the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship held at the Wellshire Golf Course near Denver, Colorado. The run had begun on July 13.

At 23 years of age, Wright, a senior at Western, not only was the first Black athlete to win the tournament, but also the first African American to compete in the championship since it began in 1922. It is recognized as perhaps the greatest accomplishment ever by a WWU Viking athlete.

And Wright was the first golfer from the state of Washington to capture the tournament. But most important to Bill was that he had won competing against the best of all the golfers

"He felt so thrilled to be the best golfer that day, not the best Black golfer," Ceta Wright, who was married to Bill for 60 years, said after Bill's death. "And, of course, afterward he realized that he was a barrier breaker and that was important to him. It was important to everyone, really, and especially in the Black community."
 

Bill Wright accepts US PubLinks Trophy
In 1960, Wright took medalist honors at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Tournament and in January of 1968 he was among the first seven inductees into the WWU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Named Western's Golfer of the Century in 1999, Wright also is enshrined in the USGA Museum in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, and is a member of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame and the African American Golfers Hall of Fame.

At the time of Wright's passing, then WWU Director of Athletics and former Viking Golf Coach Steve Card, a member of the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame, said, "Bill Wright was an iconic representative of Western Washington University, not only from an athletics perspective, but also as a wonderful human being. He impacted the world by breaking the color line in American golf, but beyond that he was an incredible person who touched a lot of people in so many ways."

"We have lost a hero, but the advice and lessons that Bill provided will have a lasting impact for generations to come. The term "great" or "greatest" gets tossed around loosely in the sports world. Bill Wright was a GREAT human being. For me personally, calling him my friend, is one of my life's greatest blessings."

Wright made another serious run at the PubLinks title in 1961 at Detroit, Michigan (Rackham Golf Club), losing in the semifinals. But he got over the defeat quickly. Had he won, Wright would have missed his wedding in Chicago the next day. He made it there in time and he and wife Ceta were married for six decades.

Wright turned pro in the early 1960s but didn't have the financial backing to play the PGA Tour full time. He did compete in the 1966 U.S. Open and later played in five U.S. Senior Opens

Wright made use of his degree in education from Western and taught elementary school for nine years in the Watts district of Los Angeles, including during the race riots of 1965. Later, he began detailing cars before acquiring a leasing business and owning a dealership in Pasadena.

Following that, Wright was a golf professional for over 25 years at The Lakes Golf Course in El Segundo, California, teaching and mentoring. For nine years (2000-09) he also operated a golf club repair shop there

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 4, 1936, Wright was the only child of Bob, a mail carrier, and Madeline, a school teacher. He called them his most vital life influences. When Bill was 12, the family moved to Portland, Oregon, and then to Seattle, Washington.

In the 1950s, because of the color of his skin, Wright was not allowed to carry a handicap, play in men's club events or play in the Seattle City Amateur.

In 1954 after finally convincing the city tournament administrator to let them play, Wright and his father were given their first opportunity to compete in the Seattle City Amateur. Bill won the event and his father finished third. That opened some doors and Wright was afforded the opportunity to play in more tournaments.

Wright enjoyed other sports as well, especially basketball. A graduate of Franklin High School, he was a third-team all-state hoops player as a senior in 1954, helping the Quakers win their first state title. Wright also played AAU basketball on a 1956 Westside Ford team that featured the legendary and long-time friend Elgin Baylor.

Wright spent one quarter at the University of Washington before Husky basketball coach Tippy Dye told him he did not want to have the school's first African American player on his team.

Wright transferred to then Western Washington College of Education because he and Dean C.W. "Bill" McDonald, a former UW player who had been Western's basketball coach until 1955, had developed a friendship.

At Western during the 1958-59 season, Wright helped the Viking basketball team to a 14-8 record, averaging a team-high 12.5 points per game to earn second-team all-Evergreen Conference honors.

On Oct. 10, 2009, "Bill Wright Day" was established and hosted by the Fir State Golf Club with The First Tee of Greater Seattle, the USGA and the Jefferson Park as sponsors.

"The game of golf is fortunate to have someone such as Bill Wright," said John Bodenhamer, Executive Director of the Washington State Golf Association at the time. "His integrity is something that is having an impact on the game across the decades."

In May of 2009, Western played host to the NCAA Division II Men's Golf Championships at the Loomis Trail Golf Club near Blaine.

At the pre-tourney banquet held at the Semiahmoo Resort, Wright was honored and presented with a plaque by then USGA President Jim Vernon commemorating the 50th anniversary of his PubLinks victory.
 
In January 2017, Wright had a stroke. It took away his ability to speak, and he was bedridden the rest of his life, his wife said in an article in the Seattle Times.

Soon after his PubLinks victory in 1959, Wright's mother had written a letter to her son.

t began: "TO A CHAMPION: You are now a national champion with all the glory and fanfare, but with all the responsibilities. Responsibilities to yourself and to the world."

Bill Wright accepted and fulfilled those responsibilities.

The Jefferson Golf Course is Seattle's oldest public course.

Jefferson Park was crucial to the development of Fred Couples, the greatest male golfer in state history.

Jefferson always has attracted a blend of golfers and has been home to Fir State Golf Club, which boasts of being one of the nation's oldest African American golf organizations. Fir State was founded in response to racist policies that kept blacks out of local tournaments. In 1992, Fir State hosted a clinic at Jefferson where a promising 16-year-old named Tiger Woods appeared.

During World War II, anti-aircraft guns were on the course because Boeing Field, the aircraft factory and the waterfront were considered prime targets for a possible attack.

Jefferson Park was the site of the 1967 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship won by Californian Verne Callison.

The course was designed by Scotsman Thomas Bendelow, called "the Johnny Appleseed of American golf" because he designed hundreds of courses. He was the original designer of Medinah Country Club's No. 3 course, which has hosted three U.S. Opens, and the East Lake Golf Club course in Atlanta, where Bobby Jones learned to play golf.