High point
If you think Richard Watkins stood out on the campus of High Point College, where he was one of the only a dozen or fewer Africans throughout the Student Body in the 1970s, you should have seen him on the golf course.
Watkins, who was the first black golfer of High Point College, arrived in 1972 at the Kleine, Methodist School, an Afro -Mamanician who integrated a sport that was mainly played by whites on a collegial and professional level. Tiger Woods, the most successful and famous black golfer in history, was not even born yet.
So yes, Watkins stood out on the golf course like a purple golf ball.
“I was sharp that if High Point were going to play at tournaments, I would be the only black there at the entire tournament,” Watkins, a 70-year-old Oak Ridge residents who now lived in Martinsville, Virginia. “When we played conference matches, it was me.”
It is not surprising that the cans and whispers from opponents, well, were par for the course.
“They sometimes still starve, but I don’t care,” recognizes Watkins. “At the time, however, I thought I was a good player, and I was just stubborn enough that when I saw people staring, I thought they admired my game. I am sure that is not the case, but that is how I felt that at the time.”
Almost half a century after leaving High Point College (now High Point University), Watkins is still considered the only black golfer in the school. Nowadays, however, it stands out for reasons other than the color of his skin.
The irony of the story of Watkins is that he never wanted to play golf. His first love was baseball, but when he was 12 or 13, he started at the old Carlson Farms Golf Course in Greensboro – “Just a way to earn a few extra dollars in the weekend,” he says.
In his downtime he would go behind the Caddy Shack and chip only for kicking, but he still didn’t care to take the game. Only when a buddy turned his arm to play a round with him, Watkins finally saw the light.
“I was addicted that first day,” he says. “I played baseball then, but after I started golf, I didn’t want to do anything else. I was completely in it.”
It was not long for his mother to put him on the golf course in the morning and then returned to pick it up at sunset. And when he was not on a golf course somewhere, Watkins tore the grass in his front gazon when he fired shots to an auxiliary pole on the other end of the garden.
He played Golf on the Northwest Guilford High School – where he was the second black golfer of the school – then came to High Point College in the fall of 1972 at a partial stock market.
By that time, Watkins from colleague North Carolinian Charlie Sifford – the first African -American to play on the PGA Tour – who opened the door for people like Lee Elder, Jim Dent and other blacks to participate in the Tour. He also regretted the fate of boys such as Bill Spiller and Ted Rhodes, talented black golfers who had the chance to play on the Tour because of race.
“Golf is difficult without the extra influences of racism,” says Watkins. “Golf is difficult enough as it is.”
At the height, however, Watkins says, he was welcomed with open arms by his coaches – Marvin Sandifer and, later, Woody Gibson – and by his teammates. His brown skin and bushy Afro may stand out in old team photos, but on the golf course he was just one of the boys.
Never was so moving than the time that High Point withdrew from a tournament because Watkins was not allowed to play.
“Marvin (Sandifer) received a phone call and wanted to know if that … (n-word) was still in the team, because if he was, you can’t play here,” explains Watkins.
“At the time, as a player, I did not know that that had passed – Marvin only told me about it 30 or 40 years later. But Marvin made the decision that we were not going. He would not leave me behind – we would just not go. Although I had a lot of respect for Marvin when I was in the university, I had a big deal more after hearing that story.”
There were other incidents that got away from the peak. For example, Watkins remembers that he had driven to a tournament outside the state, where he met members of Ku Klux Klan who took on a roundabout near the golf course.
“Aw, I had no change,” he says in a fake test.
During his student days, Watkins gave respect for a few pillars of the black community of the city-dr. Otis Tillman and Dr. Perry Little, two respected African-Americans who became his golf buddies. Both were fervent golfers, and Little was one of the three black golfers who helped integrate the Blair Park lane of the city in 1954.
During those golf rounds with in particular, says Watkins, he says a lot about life, and he saw firsthand how high was thought of Tillman in High Point. He was also aware of one of the secret dreams of Tillman – he really wanted his Alma Mater, NC A&T State University in Greensboro, a golf team. The idea had been discussed for years, but it was only about 40 years later, in 2015, that the dream finally became a reality and A&T called his very first men’s and women’s golf coach-Richard Watkins. He couldn’t wait to share the news with his old golf buddy.
“Doc did not play much golf – his health fell – but he still liked to keep Blair Park around,” Watkins recalls. “So one day I met him in Blair and I gave him an A&T golf shirt and a few dozen balls with the A&T logo. He was so excited. It was as if we finally did what you wanted to do in the last 40 years.”
Tillman died in 2019, just a few years after the Golf Team of A&T was founded.
Watkins is now retired, you can still discover him on the golf course, often in Martinsville. You will also occasionally see him at Oak Hollow Golf Course in High Point, where he worked during his student days and still likes to play from time to time.
Wherever he plays, he is the men who have paved his way for him, whether they were professionals such as Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder, or the men who integrated Blair Park or Gillespie Golfbaan from Greensboro, never forget.
“I have a huge appreciation for them,” says Watkins.
“In my own way I have some sort of the small torch that I could wear in a number of different environments. … I have no idea how many places I have been or tournaments I played where I was the only Afroamerikaan there, whether it was my university years at the height if some of the time after my student years was. But I knew this for myself, and I was there.”
