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People from around the world are both teeing off and breaking new ground in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the first golf tour for Black women this week.
The Sapphire Golf Tour inaugural season on Tuesday and Wednesday will be held at the Country Club at Woodmore.
The tour was the brainchild of Tarek DeLavallade, who is also the tour commissioner. DeLavallade told WTOP that the goal of the tour was to find ways to “put Black women in and around the top levels of the” Ladies Professional Golf Association, or LPGA.
“We developed a professional developmental tour to provide them with steps to be able to get them to that stage as quickly as possible,” DeLavallade said.
Professional golfers, whether college aged or well into their career, will attend the golf tour to network and raise money for a local nonprofit. Registration is still open and coasts $500 for the Pro-Am match and $250 for the Charity Golf Classic.
Along with starting the Sapphire Golf Tour, DeLavallade is also the executive director of the United Golfers Association, which dates to 1925.
When asked what the ladies would be competing for on Tuesday, DeLavallade said the purse would have a value that’s more than just financial.
“They’re playing for $20,000 but they’re also playing for history,” DeLavallade said. “They’re playing for an opportunity to be able to carry a legacy and continue a legacy.”
Before Faith McKinney grew up to become a professional golfer, she was inspired to take up golf by an unlikely person — her pediatrician.
“My mom was like, ‘Golf? We don’t know anything about golf,’” McKinney said with a laugh.
The Las Vegas golfer spoke to WTOP about her early days playing golf as she took part in a pro-am event.
“There was nobody out here that looked like me, so I had to be that girl for all the other girls out there,” McKinney said.
That is something McKinney said she can no longer say now that she is a part of the Sapphire Golf Tour.
“It is a sisterhood out here,” McKinney said. “There’s strong, confident, Black women, and I couldn’t have a better family to surround me.”
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