This is a picture of Charlie Sifford who helped desegregate the PGA Tour. Matt Adams on the SiriusXM PGA Tour Network re-aired an interview with Sifford this morning, in honor of MLK’s birthday. The first time it aired, I was so riveted, I transcribed this exchange:

Matt Adams: “We’ve talked a lot about the path you forged to open up the game to all people who had the ability to play. Do you feel as though golf still has a ways to go - have we gotten to where the game needs to be in terms of access?”

Charlie Sifford: “No.”

Matt Adams: “What more needs to be done?”

Charlie Sifford: “First of all, you understand Afro-Americans don’t have a chance in golf, never did have a chance in golf, never will have a chance in golf. Because it’s so tough. See, when a young black kid goes to school, most likely the school he goes to doesn’t have a golf team, and if he goes to a public school, when they go to college, he don’t have too many places he can go to college where they have a golf team, and even if he goes there — when he gets out of college, he hasn’t played any golf, and he hasn’t learned anything about golf! He’s never played in the public links, or none of those tournaments that bring him up to where he thinks he can play. And then he don’t have any money. The golf manufacturers, you understand, never did sponsor — they had three blacks once.”

Last year, the PGA Tour had two players of African-American descent; Tiger Woods and Joseph Bramlett. This year, there’s only one.

Update: the Adams/Sifford interview is available here.