Obama calls black golf trailblazer a 'legend'
WASHINGTON--Trailblazer Charlie Sifford was hailed as a "legend" by President Barack Obama and the "grandpa that I never had" by Tiger Woods as the golf world paused on Wednesday to remember the first black man to join the PGA Tour.
Sifford, who was well beyond his prime when, at the age of 38, he was accepted into the PGA in 1961, died on Tuesday in Cleveland at the age of 92. Obama, who awarded Sifford the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, termed Sifford a "golf legend" and exalted him for "altering the course of the sport and the country he loved."
"Charlie was the first African-American to earn a PGA tour card - often facing indignity and injustice even as he faced the competition," Obama said in a statement Read more
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