Golf’s self-described odd couple, Charlie Sifford and Johnny Miller, treated an overflow crowd to an entertaining and sometimes emotional Open Session of the GCSAA.

Sifford, honored as GCSAA’s 2007 Old Tom Morris Award winner, and Miller, the event’s keynote speaker, offered differing yet strikingly similar poignant views of their respective lives in golf – the persevering black man who overcame the PGA Tour’s Caucasian-only clause and the blond white guy who followed a short but meteoric career by becoming the game’s most popular, and controversial, television commentator.

Their prime playing careers were a generation apart, yet the “odd couple,” as Miller calls them, often played practice rounds together during tournaments in the 1970s.
“That’s how I learned to hit that high-right-shoulder draw,playing with Charlie,” Miller said in his address.

Miller joked, gave a golf lesson and even took questions during his emotional talk. And he even told the crowd that some greens do indeed not have grain, a comment which stirred applause from the crowd.

“The bottom line is that superintendents all around the country have done such a great job that that topic of conversation about, ‘what kind of condition is the course in?’ is almost nonexistent,” Miller said. “you all have done such a super job, we’re just spoiled.”

The Opening Session, presented in partnership with Bayer Environmental Science, featured GCSAA President Sean A. Hoolehan, CGCS, and CEO Steve Mona, CAE, noting that GCSAA continues to emphasize its “Focus on the Facility” mantra by coming up with new education programs and a more comprehensive and improved Golf Industry Show.

Sifford’s remarks were prefaced by a short congratulatory video message from Tiger Woods, who calls the 84-year-old Sifford “my grandfather.”

“For what Charlie endured during some really tense times has truly inspired me,” Woods said.
Sifford said it was a great honor to be given an award named after a great man, Old Tom Morris, whom he learned about during a recent trip to Scotland (to accepted an honorary law degree from the University of St. Andrews) while visiting the museum at the Old Course.
Sifford retraced his rough road to become the first African-American to play on the PGA Tour in the volatile early 1960s to the present, the latter years that were highlighted by honors such as induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, the St. Andrews’ law degree and now the Old Tom Morris Award.

“That’s hard to beat,” he said of the recent award trifecta. “There were some tough times and now there have been some good times,” he said.

Miller sprinkled his address with humorous comments on playing tour golf and an occasional on-stage swing lesson, as well as serious views on the work that superintendents do and his commitment to family, which eventually led to his early retirement from the tour at age 41.

Golf course superintendents are good – almost too good – according to Miller. “I have an usual love of the land; I appreciate what you do,” he said to the vast crowd of golf course management professionals. “Golf is the greatest game and the most beautiful game, thanks to you guys.”

During one of his emotional moments, Miller also counseled superintendents to take the high road with no regrets. “There is no higher calling than taking care of the earth,” he said. “Be true to yourself and be true to your family.”

“The most important work you’ll ever do is the work between the four walls of your home,” Miller told the crowd. “Every time I left my son John (to go on tour), I was done. I felt like someone just cut me off at the ankles.”