Access and integration: a dated record.

John Shippen and Oscar Bunn, 1896

Mass Golf says John Shippen's father had been enslaved, graduated from Howard University and became a Presbyterian minister, and that John began caddying at Shinnecock Hills at about age 12. At the 1896 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, Shippen entered alongside Oscar Bunn, a Native American caddie. Many players threatened to boycott. USGA president Theodore Havemeyer said the championship would go ahead even if the field was only the two of them.

Shippen shot 78 to share the first-round lead, took 11 on the 13th hole in the second round, and finished tied fifth. Mass Golf calls him the first African American to play in the U.S. Open. He played five more, the last in 1913 at The Country Club. The next African American to compete was Ted Rhodes, at Riviera in 1948.

Sources frame one of his firsts differently. Mass Golf calls Shippen the first American-born professional golfer; other accounts, including Golf Channel as summarised in search results, say the first American-born professional to enter the U.S. Open.

The United Golfers Association

Mass Golf says Mapledale Country Club in Massachusetts, now Stow Acres, hosted the first Negro National Open over Labor Day weekend 1926, the first national championship for African American golfers. The event, later the United Golfers Association (UGA) Championship, was played at courses around Greater Boston from 1941 to 1974. Accounts give 1925 or 1926 as the UGA's founding year. On the West Coast, the NCGA says the Western States Golf Association was founded in 1954 and held its first championship at Sharp Park in 1955.

The PGA of America's Caucasian-only clause

PBS NewsHour says the PGA of America's rule limiting membership to Caucasians had been in place since 1934. The NCGA's account shows the rule being used to exclude Black professionals from tournaments.

Two details are disputed. The NCGA says Spiller raised the clause with Mosk in 1960; Mosk's own account, in a 2001 Sports Illustrated piece seen only in summary, says he learned of it in 1959 from a handwritten letter from Charlie Sifford. Mass Golf dates the removal to about a month after the August 1961 UGA Championship, which does not match the November 1961 date given by the NCGA.

Charlie Sifford

Sifford won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the Los Angeles Open in 1969, according to PBS NewsHour. He never played in the Masters. The NCGA says he became the first Black player inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, in 2004. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 2006 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama a few months before he died in 2015, aged 92.

Women on tour

• Ann Gregory: according to Wikipedia, she became the first African American woman to play in a USGA national championship, at the 1956 U.S. Women's Amateur.
• Althea Gibson: WBUR says the tennis champion took up golf for income around 1960 and in 1964, at about 37, became the first Black woman to join the LPGA. She faced exclusion from social events and facilities, and left the tour in 1977. Other accounts, including Picturing Black History as summarised in search results, give 1963 for her LPGA start.
• Renee Powell: she played the 1961 UGA Championship at Ponkapoag as a 15-year-old, and joined the LPGA in 1967 as the second Black woman on the tour, according to WBUR and Mass Golf. In 2015 she was among the first women honorary members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.

Lee Elder and the Masters

History.com says Lee Elder became the first Black golfer to play in the Masters on 10 April 1975, aged 41. He had qualified by winning the 1974 Monsanto Open, and he missed the cut. He played the Masters again from 1977 to 1981, with a best finish of tied 17th in 1979, was named an honorary starter in 2021, and died on 28 November 2021, aged 87.

Shoal Creek, 1990

The 1990 PGA Championship was played from 9 to 12 August at Shoal Creek, Alabama. Before it, according to the Seattle Times, the club's founder Hall Thompson said the club would not be pressured into admitting Black members. Sponsors withdrew advertising and protests were threatened.

Louis Willie, an insurance executive, accepted an honorary membership, announced by the mayor of Birmingham, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference called off its protests. Four years later the Seattle Times reported that he was still the club's only known Black member.

After Shoal Creek, the Seattle Times says, the PGA and USGA adopted guidelines requiring host sites to have open membership policies, and some clubs chose to give up tournaments rather than comply. The same paper says Augusta National added its first Black member before the 1991 Masters. The first Black member's name was not confirmed from a primary source, so it is not given here.

Women members

ABC7 News reported that the 2014 St Andrews vote came about two years after Augusta National's first women members and after the 2013 Open at all-male Muirfield had increased pressure. Claire Dowling's nomination as the club's first woman captain is covered on the St Andrews and the R&A page.