When Stephen Curry isn’t plying his trade as the best shooter in NBA history, the two-time MVP can often be found on the golf course. Curry’s love of golf has led him to a pair of appearances in pro events, as well as the creation of a mini-golf competition TV show, Holey Moley, which debuted this past summer.
His most recent foray into the golf world, however, comes with a much greater purpose in mind. Curry is sponsoring the creation of a golf program at Howard University, a historic black university in Washington D.C. that hasn’t had an official competitive golf program since the 1970s. According to Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post, Curry will gift Howard a donation in the seven-figures (the exact amount is not known) over six years in hopes that by then an endowment can be set up to allow the program to be self-sufficient.
The costs of a golf program are high, given the travel required to compete in tournaments and, just generally, the high cost of golf as it is. Still, the hope is Howard can find sponsorships and other donors to help maintain the program once it’s up and running.
Curry was inspired to fund the revival of Howard’s golf program after he spoke with Otis Ferguson, a student at Howard who was trying to start a golf club at the school. The two talked briefly following a screening of “Emanuel,” a documentary about the 2015 shooting of nine black people at a Charleston church that Curry served as the executive producer on, and exchanged emails. Curry cites the passion of Ferguson as a big “inspiration” for funding the program, as well as a desire to open doors to golf in an area where they are often closed.
“I was blessed at a young age that we could afford to play,” said Curry, who launched a mini-golf reality show on ABC this summer and is a frequent golf partner of former president Barack Obama. “I just think about how many kids, especially from underserved communities, have the talent to play but just don’t have the funds or the resources.”
As Lowery notes, the PGA Tour remains overwhelmingly white due to how prohibitively expensive it is to get into golf as a child and continue playing and practicing enough to reach an elite level. Equipment, greens fees, and travel to courses are all significant impediments, as is the nature of the private golf club which further closes the doors of golf to the public and those that aren’t uber-wealthy.
The hope with the Howard program is that it provides an avenue for young black golfers to continue playing and competing at a high level, rather than having to choose between going to an HBCU or continuing one’s golf career — as happened to Ferguson. As Ferguson told Curry, he had college golf offers, but had decided at age 14 he wanted to follow in his father and sisters’ footsteps and attend Howard. The revival of the golf program at Howard will hopefully allow those like Ferguson to not have to make that choice and continue playing golf and improving at the game to possibly seek the opportunity to play professionally.
