Ted Rhodes

Rhodes's career ran into a clause. The PGA constitution limited tournament play to white players, and in 1948 the PGA blocked Rhodes, Bill Spiller and Madison Gunter from the Richmond, California, Open. The three sued in Los Angeles for $315,000. The PGA said it would stop barring Black players from its events, though not from membership, and the suit was dropped; the PGA then turned its open events into invitationals needing each sponsor's approval. In 1952 Rhodes qualified for the Phoenix Open. The clause was finally dropped in November 1961, eight years before he died in Nashville.

What the plaque says

Theodore "Ted" Rhodes November 9, 1913-July 4, 1969 Recognized as the first African-American professional golfer, Theodore "Ted" Rhodes, a native of Nashville, competed on the United Golf Association Tour. A predominately black tour, Rhodes won 150 tournaments from the late 1940s to 1960. Boxing champion Joe Louis' personal golf pro, Louis sponsored Rhodes on the UGA. In 1948, Rhodes became the first African-American professional golfer to compete on the PGA tour, when he played in the U.S. Open at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. A pioneer, Ted Rhodes blazed the PGA tour trail for African-American professional golfers. In 1998 he was inducted into the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 1.5 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 2.6 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.8 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• Ryman Auditorium — 3.0 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Juno Frankie Pierce — 1.0 mi
• Zephaniah Alexander Looby — 1.1 mi
• Tennessee State University — 1.2 mi
• First Community Church — 1.2 mi