'I try to stay intact with golf': At 104, Herbert Dixon still giving back in Bartow
BARTOW — A typical day for Bartow’s Herbert Dixon consists of exercising, eating as properly as he can and spending time with his family.
He doesn't drink or smoke, and his philosophy is that he lives day-to-day. He gets his yearly physical examination, and his most recent report looked solid. Dixon said he feels great and focuses on always doing everything himself.
There’s nothing abnormal about this – except that Dixon is 104 and still going strong in Bartow, where he is revered as a trailblazer who made it a point that he could play golf just like others who played the game earlier in the 20th century.
It was a quite a time back then, and his legend has evolved into the 11th annual Herbert Dixon Celebrity Golf Tournament, an event that keeps him going and one he got to again experience Saturday at the Bartow Municipal Golf Course.
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He doesn’t play golf consistently like he used to. But he does his best to stay around the game.
“I try to stay intact with golf. That’s my greatest ambition,” Dixon said. “Golf is the only sport that you can enjoy in your later age. Golf helps me to stay mobile, and in shape to a certain extent. It is the only sport that I know of that you can play and be active (at an old age). Football, basketball, tennis, all of those sports limit you. But golf, you can get out there and enjoy yourself with the guys. It keeps you motivated in your mind.”
And that’s all that matters to Dixon. But his greater purpose is to ensure that his tournament continues to run smoothly and to help those who need the funding.
Bartow Deacons and Stewards Alliance have organized scholarship funding events since 1993, starting with two and now at more than 20 scholarships. The alliance organized Dixon’s golf event 10 years ago. Carver Young, also a Bartow native and the president of the alliance who was a trailblazer in Mosaic Four Corners Mine, said his group raised roughly $15,000 in 2023.
There’s a reason Young and so many more look up to Dixon, though.
Dixon’s legend started at the age of 15, when a person he caddied for at Bartow’s golf course gifted him a club. At night, amid times of segregation, he went out and taught himself how to golf, which sparked a professional career that culminated in the local renaissance man in winning 63 tournaments in the United Golf Association tour in the 1950s. Dixon earned over 200 trophies, while also beating Charlie Sifford — the first Black golfer to cross over to the PGA Tour — in a Jacksonville professional tournament in 1951.
Dixon would keep going after his dreams, working in a mine and picking fruit to save money to compete in the Jacksonville professional tournament. Eventually he became a truck driver for steady employment at 31. When he was 102, he was elected into the African American Golfers Hall of Fame.
Now, Dixon looks to stay as healthy as he possibly can to help the future generation, as he will always remember how he was once helped by his very own community on an unconventional path.
“I’ve seen a lot of things … in my lifetime. Talking about the golf as an example, when I was coming up, I wasn’t allowed on the golf course at all. ... I’ve lived to see a dramatic change in the relationship,” Dixon said. “This event that is going on right now is something that I’m so happy and proud to witness … and we are finally coming together. And when I was coming up, that wouldn’t happen. … And to be able to help raise funds to help the ones … (and) give them an opportunity to get better education in this day and time. Nowadays, you need an education.”
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Herbert Dixon, age 104, remains key part of Bartow scholarship program
