Remembering Bill Wright, ’55, (1936 – 2021)
Pro golf was still segregated when he won
Wright was a standout golfer and basketball player when he attended high school in Seattle, as well as at Western Washington University. He was in his senior year of college when he entered the USGA Amateur Public Links Championship. After his groundbreaking victory there, Wright had a dream of playing golf professionally, but it wasn’t an easy road for a Black man at a time when the PGA’s bylaw still included a “Caucasians only” clause. He played in PGA Tour events beginning in 1960, but he was unable to gain any sponsors, and full-time professional play was an unsustainable path in this segregated era. Wright played in a handful of other PGA Tour events over the years while working as a teacher and a car salesman, and he later became a teaching pro at the California golf course the Lakes at El Segundo.
Notable quote
“You have to understand, we could not play in city tournaments, state tournaments or national tournaments because we couldn’t join a club. There were only three [public] golf courses in Seattle: West Seattle, Jackson Park and Jefferson Park.” —from a 2012 interview for USGA
William Wright, the first Black golfer to claim a USGA championship, died on Feb. 19 at the age of 84 in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles. In 1959, Wright defeated Frank Campbell, 3 and 2, in the final match of the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship at Wellshire Golf Course in Denver. It was a seminal moment in USGA history, even though the 23-year-old Wright initially considered himself only as a national champion, not the first Black to hoist a USGA trophy.
“He felt so thrilled to be the best golfer that day, not the best Black golfer,” said Ceta Wright, who was married to Bill for 60 years, in an interview with the Seattle Times. “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.”
Shortly after the trophy presentation, a Seattle journalist called Wright and asked what it was like to be the first African American to win a national championship. Wright, who was about to enter his senior year at Western Washington College, slammed the phone down.
Wright later told golf.com, “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 that other people were thinking [about race]. I was just playing golf.”
Wright competed that week with only 12 clubs: two woods, nine irons and a putter. His opponent from Jacksonville, Fla., had been a professional for four years before regaining his amateur status and returning to the insurance business.
Wright was born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1936, the only child of Bob and Madeline Wright. His father was a postman and his mother a schoolteacher. The family moved to Portland, Ore., when he was 12 and later to Seattle, where Wright was introduced to the game by his father at Jefferson Park, the same municipal course where future Masters champion Fred Couples honed his skills.
But Wright’s first love was basketball, and as a 6-foot-2 power forward, he helped Franklin High to the city championship, earning All-State third team honors. He also played AAU ball with future Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor.
Wright’s competitive spirit translated nicely to golf. When his father, who qualified for the 1963 APL, pointed out the city junior golf champion and told his son that he could never beat him, Wright took it as a challenge. One year later he captured the city title.
Although he was one of the top golfers in the state, neither of the two major Division I colleges in town – the University of Washington and Seattle University – offered him a scholarship. Wright decided to attend Western Washington in Bellingham, a small town near the Canadian border.
Even in that tiny corner of the Pacific Northwest, Wright encountered racism. Despite the fact he was a state champion, he was not welcomed by the local country club. When the golf coach told him the club was planning to withdraw privileges for the team, Wright chose to practice alone at a rustic four-hole facility nearby.
“The golf coach sat me down and told me that if anything happened on campus that upset me or wasn’t right, I should come and tell him and he would deal with it,” said Wright in the golf.com story. “But he let me know that if anything happened down in Bellingham, 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.”
The Washington State Golf Association, The First Tee of Greater Seattle and Jefferson Park Golf Course declared Oct. 10, 2009 as “Bill Wright Day” to honor the 50th anniversary of his APL triumph. Four years later, Wright was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was inducted into the African American Golfers Hall of Fame.
To read full obituary, which includes a video of Bill Wright, see:
Remembering Bill Wright: First Black USGA Champion