True golfers cannot imagine a life without golf. Other than a spouse who bars the door or locks our clubs away, nothing can keep us from a game. There is a course for every playing ability and every pocketbook. But how many of us love golf enough that we would build our own course if we were denied access to every club in our hometown, private and public?
Bill Powell, who died on Thursday, loved golf intensely since he began caddying at age 9. As a returning World War II GI, Powell, an African American, was denied the opportunity to play golf on all the public courses in his hometown of Canton, OH. Most men would have taken up another hobby, but not Mr. Powell. Despite being turned down for bank loans, he borrowed from a few friends, bought a 78-acre dairy farm in East Canton and opened a nine-hole course in April 1948 (the month and year your editor was born). After buying additional acreage, he expanded to 18 holes in 1978. Mr. Powell’s Clearview Golf Club, the only course built and owned by an African American, was designated a national historic site by the U.S. Department of Interior in 2001.
As his son Larry explained his father’s passion during a television interview last year, “He was just obsessed.”
You can read the New York Times’ obituary by clicking here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/sports/golf/02powell.html?hpw