Caddying On The Color Line: Race, Labor, And Leisure on the Twentieth-Century Southern Golf Course

Over the course of the twentieth century thousands of Black men worked as golf caddies in the South of the United States. As golf became popular in the region in the late nineteenth century, White management at country clubs and tourist resorts enlisted Black men and boys to carry golf bags and search for golf balls. The arrangement fit neatly into the White supremacist vision of society as African American workers facilitated White leisure time. Black men were drawn to caddying because the job offered comparative benefits to the alternative agricultural or industrial work available to them. On the golf course Black caddies and White golfers negotiated the intricacies of golf’s expected behaviors and racial etiquette. White golfers expected caddies to conform to racial stereotypes and accept their position in the region’s Jim Crow hierarchy. Black caddies carefully navigated their interactions with White golfers and sought opportunities to disprove racist assumptions, assert the value of their labor, and improve their lives through individual acts of resistance, collective strikes, and expert service. These workers turned their job from one that White southerners, and some Black leaders, framed as menial service into a respected profession. Black men who learned to play golf as caddies in the South also became integral to the growth of the sport in Black communities around the country and went on to break the color barrier in the professional game. In the mid-century the golf cart displaced caddies on southern golf courses as golf course management sought profit and Black workers moved away from jobs at the service of White southerners. This story focuses on the daily ways that Black southerners lived with pride, dignity, and talent in the face of racial oppression. Black caddies were integral to the most famous golf courses in the South in towns such as Pinehurst, North Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. The little acknowledged history of Black caddies enriches our understanding of Black labor in all of its varieties, of the subtleties of the racial etiquette of the Jim Crow era, and of the racial politics of leisure during the twentieth century.