Charlie Sifford - A Man of Determination
Four decades after breaking golf's color barrier, Charlie Sifford still swings for the green.
By JOHN D. NESTOR
Reprint from ADVISOR - Fall-Winter 2005
Charlie Sifford has lived a success story more than 40 years in the making. Golf's Jackie Robinson, Sifford became the first full-time black player on the PGA tour as a 41-year-old rookie in 1961, paving the way for such players as Lee Elder, the first black player at the Masters, and the top player in the world today.
To make his way in a sport that at the time was almost exclusively white, Sifford needed grit and determination. So it's no surprise that Sifford, now in his eighties, shows the same discipline when it comes to fulfilling another goal - providing financial security for his family. "I don't want them to go through the same things that I went through," says Sifford.
The things he went through, growing up in North Carolina, included quitting school before the 12th grade to help support a family of six children. Caddying at a golf club, he discovered a natural affinity for the game, and before long he was swinging his own clubs. From 1952 to 1956, he won the National Negro Open five times straight. But it was his entry in the PGA tour in 1961 that changed his life - and the sport he loves - forever. Among his early tournaments was the Greater Greensboro Open in his home state, where he was greeted with death threats. Sifford did not win, but he wrote in his autobiography, Just Let Me Play, "I had come through my first Southern tournament with the worst kind of social pressure and discrimination around me, and I hadn't cracked. I hadn't quit."
Sifford ultimately won two PGA events: the 1967 Greater Hartford Open and the 1969 Los Angeles Open. Yet it is principally his groundbreaking courage that earned him a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame. "I believe I made the game better for golf," Sifford says. "It's a world game now and it wasn't that way before, and I am proud of that."
Unlike the players on tour today, however, Sifford never raked in millions as a pro. He has made most of his money in the golden years of his career and still tees it up with sponsors and at clinics at Champions Tour events. Among several victories as a senior was the 1975 PGA Seniors Championship. "Charlie golfed for 35 years and barely earned enough to keep going," says Brant Giere, Sifford's Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor. "He earned more money after he retired, after he got into the seniors."
As Sifford's income grew later in life, he and Giere sat down to rethink Sifford's retirement plan. Giere wanted more focus on Sifford's growing portfolio. "I recommended we consolidate everything straight away," Giere says. "And to look and see how everything might fit together."
Giere and Sifford built a fixed-income portfolio of tax-free municipals and a ladder of shorter-term bonds. In all, fixed income makes up about 60% of Sifford's portfolio. Thirty-five percent of his investments are in equities, and the rest are in cash. To provide for his grandchildren, Sifford established 529 college savings plans that have already grown substantially.
Sifford continues to play golf regularly and maintains a schedule that would wear out many people decades younger. "He's 83 and still hits the driving range every day," says Giere. "And he flies all over the place. He's in Detroit, in Florida, he goes down to the World Golf Hall of Fame - every time he calls me, he's either going somewhere or just coming back from somewhere."
There's no telling how many PGA events Sifford might have won had he been permitted to join the tour prior to 1961. But he has few regrets. "I've played this game for 48 years, and it was special to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame," Sifford says. "I'm proud of my place in the game. I was a hardworking man with a big heart, and I believed in what I wanted to do."
"One thing. Charlie is not bitter about the past," Giere says. "He just wants to play golf. Whether he's earned a buck or $100,000, he just wants to play, just wants to go out and hit the ball."
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