Trailblazing golfer Jim Dent remembered for perseverance, loyalty to family, hometown

The flower of choice for Aprils in Augusta, Georgia, is the azalea – its pink petals adorning the city’s golf scene and most prominent course. But there is another profound bloom about 5 miles from Augusta National, a towering magnolia tree hanging in a period garden about the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History.

Legendary Black golfer Jim Dent, who grew up in Augusta and played a consequential role in its golf history, died May 2 in the Georgia town. Known for his prodigious drives on the course, he was 85, seven days shy of his birthday.

The Laney Museum is an epicenter for Dent’s upbringing and homecoming. He attended Lucy Craft Laney High School, which is next door to the museum. A trip down Laney-Walker Boulevard through the sprawling medical district will take you to historically Black Paine College, also Dent’s alma mater. A celebration of Dent’s life was held Monday at Paine College.

A few interconnected roads away from Augusta’s traffic and up an incline will get you to the Sand Hills neighborhood, where the community center and houses a golf ball’s throw away are all part of the Dent family legacy. Sand Hills was not only home to golfing greats, but also to the likes of Gerald White, the Auburn University basketball standout and a godfather to future basketball players such as former Duke guard William Avery and former UConn guard Ricky Moore.

A week after Dent died, the Laney Museum held a meeting for “Men on the Bag,” its fan experience which began in 2016 that brought to life “the rich history and pivotal role Black caddies played in assisting the world’s top golfers.” In short, it was a way to give Black men their long-deserved recognition denied because of racism and classism.

In that room were two men who helped to found and curate the effort – Corey Rogers, a historian and the museum’s executive director, along with Leon Maben, a bottled water distribution executive who grew up in the Laney-Walker neighborhood and became a golf historian.

Maben was also with Dent — the day before the stroke that led to Dent’s death — at a commemoration for Black golf legend Lee Elder at the Christian City of Praise church.

“We were at a program put on by Ramona Harriet in Augusta to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Lee Elder being the first Black golfer to play the Masters, and Jim was recognized as well,” Maben said. “The program was that Sunday, April 6, and the next thing I know, that Monday, people were calling me saying Jim had to be rushed to the hospital.

“Wait a minute. I was just with the man yesterday. What are you talking about?”

Dent and Maben had become close friends through Men on the Bag, a far cry from how the two met years ago at the site of one of Dent’s favorite places, the Augusta Municipal Golf Course, affectionately known as “The Patch.”

“One of those earlier years of Men on the Bag, I’m sitting in the golf cart with Jim and I didn’t know who he was. We’re just having a conversation,” Maben said. “When Dent got up and left, I think one of my friends, who was a golfer, asked me, ‘Do you know who you were sitting in the golf cart with? Man, that’s Jim Dent!’

“My friend schooled me on who Jim Dent was, and from that point I said, ‘Hey, we gotta honor that man.’ ”

Rogers, as the museum’s executive director, shared Maben’s sentiment. Further, he had a personal link to Dent through his father because the two of them played golf together.

“Mr. Dent found out who my dad was, and we had a little running joke. My dad told him that I was in the market for a new car, and ‘gas money’ became the [punchline] of the joke,” Rogers said. “Mr. Dent would say, ‘I took the money from your dad, so now you’re not going to have any gas money.

“It says just how down to earth he was,” Rogers added. “He was this icon on the senior circuit, had won a lot of tournaments and money, beat some of the heavyweights and had become a golf innovator. And yet the thing that seemed to make him the happiest was playing cards with the fellas at The Patch, or just chilling and grilling out.”

Dent’s life seemed to be a manifestation of the adage “work hard, play hard,” with an emphasis on the former. 

“Perseverance was his watch word. He would always say, ‘If you want to attain something, then just go ahead and set your mind to it. Make that your goal. Make that your focus,’ ” Rogers said. “He would talk about washing dishes in Atlantic City, as one of his odd jobs that he did, but he never wanted to stop there. Being a caddy, he didn’t want to stop there. He had bigger aspirations. And I think because of that, a lot of people looked up to him.”

Andre Lacey II is Jim Dent’s grandson, and not only did he inherit his predecessor’s love for golf, but also his broad shoulders — a reminder that Dent went to Paine on a football scholarship. The week after Dent died, Lacey travelled to Wisconsin in his capacity as the men’s and women’s golf coach at Paine.

Before Dent went on the Senior PGA Tour winning streak in 1990 that changed his golf career, he would hit practice shots under the watchful eye of his grandson.

“There was a period of time where he lost his [PGA] Tour card – like at the end of the year. And he was like, ‘Nuh-uh.’ He took a short-game lesson and he practiced what was in that lesson. We used to go behind Copeland Elementary and practice. I was like 5,” Lacey said. “He just hit short shots and wedges. I’m like, ‘Why is he going in this field, hitting balls and stuff?’

“Because when you go out there, you gotta have a swing. The conditions don’t matter. …You gotta know how to execute. He really practiced his short game, and went on a crazy run, like 10 wins in a couple of years.”

Lacey recently posted a recap on social media of perhaps Dent’s most significant win on the 50-over PGA Champions Tour, a one-stroke playoff victory over Lee Trevino at the 1990 Crestar Classic. It was Dent’s sixth victory in less than 12 months. Dent played professionally for more than 40 years on the PGA Tour and the PGA Champions Tour, where he won 12 times.

The Paine coach, who himself has 16 professional wins, is seemingly most proud of the Division II women’s golf championship that the Lady Lions won in 2024, and the championship ring he wears periodically is similarly beaming.

As we travel from the Sand Hills Community Center back to Paine, Lacey tells stories about the neighborhood, his childhood and his family legacy. Back at the Augusta-based HBCU, Lacey adjusts his seat in a cramped office, chock-full of golfing lore.

It is here we see not just the industrious Dent, but the entrepreneurial one. Lacey pops in a DVD with golf lessons from his grandfather. A painting hangs high in the office with Dent, Tiger Woods, and Dent’s golf peers, names such as Jim Thorpe and Pete Brown. Most notably, there is a golf club cover with Dent’s sponsor and a familiar name to golfers, Callaway’s “Big Bertha.”

Lacey shares a compelling urban legend about the golf club’s name that sounds too good to be true? Or is it real?

My grandfather and Mr. Ely Callaway, the founder of Callaway Golf, developed a really good friendship. He was the first professional to be signed to Callaway Golf. Not the first Black professional. The first period. Hence the name, “Kings of Distance.” My grandfather was known for how far he drove the ball.

Mr. Ely asked my grandfather: “If you were to make something, what would you name it after?” My grandfather said, “Maybe my Aunt Mary, who took care of me, or my sister, Bertha, who also took care of me.” The next thing you know, you got the Big Bertha.

My grandfather’s nickname is “Big Boy.” You know, Big Mary probably wouldn’t have stuck. But Big Bertha did.

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The picture hanging up in Lacey’s office is foundational as it relates to Black golfers’ presence in the game. Dent is pictured in the top left corner, along with these giants: Calvin Peete, Lee Elder, Jim Thorpe, Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown and Tiger Woods.

The world knows Woods. The others – not as rooted in societal lore. 

Ramona Harriet, who organized the event in Augusta back in April, is a caretaker. She is the author of “A Missing Link In History: The Journey of African Americans In Golf,” and if you look up the book online, one will see the name of a co-author: Jim Dent.

Her work in the space is honored, not just in the underground, but by the tour itself. That love began with the sport’s Black icons.

“They were my rock in many ways,” Harriet said in a phone interview. “Jim Dent was very supportive, just like all of the others. I was very blessed.

“They were all my rocks because it’s a tough industry. … An even more tough industry for Black females,” she added. “The times when I felt like I was going to say, ‘Hey, I can’t do this anymore,’ I called Charlie, or [the others], and they were just there for me.”

Make no mistake, however. Harriet is no wilting flower. She is remarkably honest about golf’s failure to celebrate its Black heroes, and how that informs her work.

“It’s like one of the golfers said, and I’m not going to name them. ‘They’re doing really nice things for me now, but they waited until I was too old to enjoy it.’ And that seems like the pattern for Black golfers,” she said. “It’s a rich history and a story that needs to be told.”

She spoke about the legacy and upbringing of Joseph Rice, another caddie-turned golfer who sued to desegregate the golf courses in Miami Springs in June of 1949.

“I interviewed him. He learned how to play golf as a child using a bicycle handlebar and a Carnation can. One day, a pro saw Joseph and his brother sneaking onto the golf course, and the pro asked them, ‘You wanna learn how to play golf?’ ” she said. “The pro gave him a ball and a golf club. That was his first golf club.”

“It’s not just about golf, but it’s a story of civil rights. It’s a story of American history. It’s not just about, as people would say, hitting that little white golf ball. What they fought for and what they did to be able to hit that little white golf ball is the story.”

It is a story that endures, despite the meager numbers of Black golfers and professionals. Lacey contends that “if you want more Black professionals, you need more Black instructors.” Harriet says that was part of Dent’s closing comments in her book about the missing history of Black golfers.

“I think his biggest concern was to continue the journey,” she said. “Don’t let the history and legacy [of Black golfers] die.”

And yet, Dent was like the tree in Laney’s garden, a natural pillar deeply entrenched in Augusta’s soil. Where some of his colleagues died a few years ago or longer, Dent relished his role of being an ambassador, which is why his death resonates so profoundly.

In many ways, he is the last of a proud vanguard.

“He wasn’t just a great golfer. He was a great man and it wasn’t nothing that he didn’t try to do for our family or the city or anybody,” Lacey said. “Most times people think of a humanitarian as a person that gifted a lot of money and stuff like that. He gifted a lot of love and a lot of lessons that transcended far better than money would have.”

“Even though there were times that he had a very serious look on his face, under that serious look, people need to know the human being also,” Harriet said. “He loved kids, and he loved getting youth involved in the game of golf. He was a man who loved his children.

“He would always say, ‘You got to work hard,’ and ‘Don’t forget where you came from.’ He never did. Augusta was his home, and he gave back to it.”