The municipal course in the city’s Pontchartain Park was designed specifically for African-American golfers by the man for whom it is named, and who “stands among the most enterprising men [New Orleans] has ever produced.”
As part of a year-long commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, WGNO, the ABC television affiliate in New Orleans, La., recently featured the Joseph M. Bartholomew Municipal Golf Course in the city’s Pontchartrain Park and Joe Bartholomew, the man who designed it specifically for African-American golfers and for whom the course is named.
Bartholomew “stands among the most enterprising men [New Orleans] has ever produced,” WGNO said in its report. He was a contractor, real estate investor, philanthropist, owner of an insurance company, and much more. But his real passion was golf.
At a time when most blacks could only work to clean up golf courses, Bartholomew was not only an avid golfer, but a golf course architect, WGNO noted. He designed and built courses he wasn’t even allowed to play on, in addition to the Batholomew municipal course, which “stands [as] a testament to his passion to make the game available for everyone,” the station noted.
“I learned about him from some of the guys that lived around here and played with him,” Glen Dexter of the Friends of Bartholomew Golf Course organization told WGNO. “Some of the older guys that are no longer around knew how important he was in terms of making sure that golf stayed alive in the city”
While the Bartholomew course took a beating after Hurricane Katrina, the city saw fit to bring it back better than ever, WGNO reported, recognizing that it was more than just someplace to play golf, it was also an anchor for its part of the city.
“Without the course there is no neighborhood, and without the neighborhood there is no course,” Ann McDonald of NOLA Parks and Parkways told WGNO. “And we got a lot of push back from folks [saying] ‘Why are y’all worrying about a golf course?’
“But we knew that having had such a deep history of this course and the Pontchartrain Park neighborhood, as well as of the African-American golfer in New Orleans, this was the only course they could play in the 1950s, and even [after] the men could go to other courses, this was still their home,” McDonald added.
To view the video footage of the course that was part of WGNO’s coverage, go to http://wgno.com/2018/01/01/mlk-50-joe-bartholomew-golf-course-stands-as-a-tribute-to-a-groundbreaking-civic-leader/
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.