Caddying on the Color Line: How Black Caddies Defined and Redefined Golf in the South

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Craig Gill

Caddying on the Color Line

How Black Caddies Defined and Redefined Golf in the South

Craig Gill

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English

Back Nine Press
15 March 2025

History of the Americas; Social & cultural history; Local history; Golf

For most of the 20th century, tens of thousands of Black caddies worked the fairways and greens of the South's golf courses. From the famed links of Augusta and Pinehurst to the local country clubs and resorts across the region these African American men and boys carried bags, selected clubs, and read putts. They served a population of tourist golfers who wanted to get the ""full southern experience."" They fought for fair pay, fair treatment, while receiving neither. They fought for equal access to public courses when the laws of desegregation were largely ignored. And they tried to move into other jobs as the rise of the golf cart spelled doom for the Southern caddie.

Meticulously researched and rigorously vetted, CADDYING ON THE COLOR LINE reveals how Southern Black caddies-young and old-navigated a world of racial tension, professionalized a job once seen as unskilled, became expert golfers in their own right, and helped to pave the way for the rise of Tiger Woods. Along the way, the history of Black caddies reveals the unexpected reasons for the rise of the golf cart and helps explain why there are fewer Black golfers on professional tours today than in the 1960s.

The thousands of Southern Black men who called caddying their job over the course of the 20th century may not have lived extraordinary lives. But their daily struggles and triumphs abounded with resilience, pride, skill, and dignity.

This book tells their story.

By: Craig Gill
Imprint: Back Nine Press
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 463g
ISBN: 9781956237269
ISBN 10: 1956237267
Pages: 274
Publication Date: 15 March 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

CRAIG J. GILL is a Scottish writer, researcher, and historian. Having grown up playing golf and caddying for the occasional American tourist in Edinburgh and the East Neuk of Fife, he completed an undergraduate degree in History and a Master's in American Studies at the University of Glasgow.He spent the subsequent five years in the U.S. South, studying the region's complex past. He earned a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Craig now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia-four thousand miles from his (and golf's) home country, but still deeply committed to illuminating a more holistic understanding of golf's rich past.