Calvin Peete (July 18, 1943 - April 29, 2015) was born in Detroit. He had become the most successful African American golfer on the PGA Tour, with 12 wins, a record that would be surpassed only by Tiger Woods. In 1983, dubbed “Mr. Accuracy” by fellow golfers for his ability to hit the ball consistently onto the fairway, he hit a staggering 84.55 percent of fairways in 87 PGA Tour rounds.
He won the Professional Golf Association’s “Vardon Trophy,” for PGA Tour leaders with the lowest scoring average. He was a member of the US Ryder Cup teams in 1983 and 1985 and among the “top 10” in the “Official World Golf Ranking” for several weeks, during the rankings’ 39-week inaugural year.
He was the eighth of nine children born to Irenna (Bridgeford) Peete and Dennis Peete, a Detroit auto factory worker.
At the age of 23, he was taken to a golf course for the first time. He quickly learned the game on that public course in Rochester. He taught himself to play, He turned professional before he reached 30 and became the fourth African American to win on the PGA Tour.
After earning his PGA Tour card in 1975, he went on to win his first tournament, the Milwaukee Open, in 1979. He qualified for the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, and became the first African American to win The Players Championship in Vedra Beach, Florida.
During his 20-year career on the PGA Tour, he finished fourth on the money list in 1982 and had two-win seasons in 1983, ’85, and ’86. His success waned in the 1990s. Between 1991 and 1995 he appeared in 21 events. After retiring from competition in 1995, he continued to play in the Legends of Golf Tournaments until 2009.
He and his first wife, Christine, divorced in 1987. They were the parents of five children. He and his second wife, Elaine (Pepper) Peete, were married in 1993. They had two daughters. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence
pixelskylines
snowghoul
titsay
blakekathryn
areudirty
jacobvanloon
kaledo-art
