Peete plans comeback

With the tour stopping last week at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, we caught up with Calvin Peete, the 1985 champion:

Question: What are you doing these days?

Peete: I’m working with my wife (Pepper). She is the executive director of The First Tee in Jacksonville. I love working with those kids. That’s what it’s all about for me now.

Question: There are rumblings that you’re going to play again. True? If so, why now?

Peete: Yes. You’ll see me out there next year. It’s going to take a few months to get myself in shape. I’ve got to do some road work to get ready. I played in the Legends of Golf down in Savannah a few weeks ago just on the spur of the moment. As a past winner of The Players Championship, I was eligible, so I went down there even though I hadn’t been hitting any balls or anything. But it didn’t matter. Talking with those old guys, reminiscing about our rivalries, those competitive juices started flowing. I said to myself: ‘Man, you’ve got to get back out here.’

Question: You’ve battled health issues throughout your career. What is the state of your health now, and what sort of battles are you fighting on that front?

Peete: I have Tourette’s syndrome, which is ongoing, but it’s minimal at this point. Other than that I’ve just got the normal aches and pains. The Tourette’s was the big problem, the reason I stopped playing before, but that’s under control now.

Question: Are you taking some new medications?

Peete: I don’t take any medications. My medication is prayer, and believe me when I tell you, prayer works.

Question: You were the most accurate driver of the ball on tour. Has that statistic become meaningless in today’s power game?

Peete: Absolutely it has. Guys just bomb it as far as they can, and then find it and hit it hard again.

Question: Would a player like you be able to compete today?

Peete: No way, not on the regular tour. The game that these guys are playing I don’t even recognize it. Lee Trevino and I were talking about it, and he said, “The golf industry has sabotaged us with the new ball and the new clubs.” We played a shotmaker’s game. It’s not a shotmaker’s game anymore.

Question: Back in the early eighties, there were more African-Americans on tour than at any point in history, before or since. Today there are more African-Americans in the NHL than on the PGA Tour. What happened?

Peete: The main thing is the caddie ranks. Most of those guys came up through the caddie ranks and the caddie is almost extinct. Plus, as we started getting older, there was nobody waiting in the wings that we could teach. I tell people all the time, throughout the last three or four decades there has only been one of us who has excelled: It was Charlie Sifford in the ‘60s, Lee Elder in the ‘70s, Cal Peete in the ‘80s, and Tiger Woods in the ‘90s and now. We had a lot more players back 30 years ago, but only one each decade that has stood out.

Question: How do we get back to the point where you and Jim Thorpe and Jim Dent and others were not just playing but winning?

Peete: I don’t know. That’s up to the kids. When I came out in the ‘70s there were 10 or 12 black golfers on tour week-in and week-out. Now, they didn’t all excel. As the years went on, they all started disappearing. By the late ‘80s, I was the only one out there. I was like Tiger Woods now, the Lone Ranger out there.

Question: The First Tee is a decade old now. How is that experiment working?

Peete: Great. I think it’s a great avenue for education. If there is one kid that steps out and says, ‘Hey, I want to play the tour,’ I’ll be there to help them. But our main thrust is education, and that through golf, you are going to meet some of the most important people in your community. I love being a part of it.

Question: Will The First Tee be the vehicle that produces the next great African-American tour player?

Peete: Hopefully, but it’s really impossible for me to say. I don’t walk in and say, ‘One of you can be the next Tiger Woods, or Lee Elder, or Calvin Peete.’ I don’t even talk that kind of talk. I focus on the core values: perseverance, fair play, and how important golf can be in their lives.