While you consider golf, your first ideas may be white males, salt-and-pepper hair and designer khakis dotting the greens of unique nation golf equipment. However for practically 9 many years, one membership within the Washington, D.C., space has been difficult that narrative.
The Wake-Robin Golf Membership, the oldest Black girls’s golf membership within the nation, is making ready to mark its ninetieth anniversary subsequent 12 months. For now, members are reflecting on the legacy that started all these years in the past in the lounge of its founding member.
The membership’s story dates again to 1936, when Helen Webb Harris—an educator and the spouse of an avid golfer who belonged to the all-male Royal Golf Membership, one of many oldest Black males’s golf golf equipment within the nation—invited 12 pals to her house. Annoyed by being left behind whereas their husbands hit the hyperlinks, the ladies, a lot of whom had been a part of the Black elite of that period, started discussing forming a membership of their very own. The next 12 months, Wake-Robin was formally born.
“There was nothing for ladies to do in these days however maintain home,” Elizabeth McNeal, then in her late 90s, informed Andscape in 2017.
The membership takes its title from the deep purple wildflower native to the Mid-Atlantic — a area stretching from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia that was as soon as a hub of the Black bourgeoisie. Members proudly put on the membership’s colours: purple and gold.
From its earliest days, Wake-Robin members navigated the cruel realities of Jim Crow–period racism. They fought for entry to all-white programs throughout the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, together with East Potomac, the place they endured racial slurs and even objects — eggs and golf balls amongst them — hurled of their route. Nonetheless, they continued.
“It’s a terrific group. I imply, I might have by no means guessed {that a} group of ladies might maintain one thing going for therefore lengthy,” former Wake-Robin president Debbie Tyner informed USA At this time in a current interview.
At this time, with greater than 50 members, the membership continues to hold out Webb Harris’ imaginative and prescient: getting girls onto the inexperienced, with or with out their male counterparts. Members vary from junior golfers and younger professionals to girls effectively into their golden years. The hope, longtime members say, is that youthful girls will take the boldness and connections solid on the course into different areas — together with boardrooms and places of work the place golf nonetheless serves as casual foreign money.
The membership additionally hosts a match in honor of Webb Harris and is planning a multi-day celebration for its ninetieth anniversary to highlight its resilience, fellowship, and dedication to rising the sport.
And whereas there may be loads of camaraderie, members are fast to make clear that Wake-Robin isn’t just about socializing.
“We’re not a social membership. We play golf,” mentioned Tyner. “Don’t simply come and assume that we’re simply going to sip wine and eat wings. We’re going out on the golf course, and we’re going to play some golf first.”
