A New Day
Chester Washington Golf Club, an Essential Part of the Black Community in Los Angeles, is in the Midst of a Resurgence
There is a difference between the golf course and the golf club at Chester Washington.
The course is a physical space that consists of 18 holes originally designed by John Dunn with updates by William P. Bell and is tucked into the southwestern-most corner of what is known as South Central Los Angeles. As you make the turn off Western Avenue onto Charlie Sifford Drive, you’ll notice murals that speak to the city’s passion for the hometown favorite Lakers and Dodgers.
LAZ VERSALLES AND THE LATE DONNIE JONES GREET PLAYERS AT THE CLUB’S MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY EVENT. PHOTO BY D’ANDRE GARMON
The club, however, is like a spiritual home made up of both men and women members who love to play, compete and socialize. Nobody puts on any airs. Lawyers, plumbers, CEOs, entertainers, teachers, flight attendants and all other walks of life are represented. The club has been operating for over 60 years and the membership today is eclectic, embracing its role as the hub of the African American golf community in Los Angeles.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COURSE
Built on land owned by the O.T. Johnson Corporation, the course opened in 1928 and was called La Avenida GC. Shortly thereafter, a small group of golfers came together to form the first “club” at La Avenida. Then, in 1931, the course was renamed Western Avenue GC.
Arguably the most critical years for the course would be the 1953 and 1954 seasons. The land the club occupied was set to be subdivided in 1953 before the County of Los Angeles, led by County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn — who saw the value a golf course lends to a community — became the owner on January 1, 1954. The course had active men’s and women’s clubs at that point, but the women’s club was only open to white women.
Then Maggie Hathaway came along.
A mile up the street, you’ll find the Maggie Hathaway GC. As a par-3 course, it serves as a feeder of sorts to the regulation track at Chester Washington and is named after actress, activist and community leader Maggie Hathaway, who was never one to back away from a fight for justice.
In regard to her efforts to join the all-white women’s club, she remembered in her book A Tearful Journey For Freedom, “Those Western Avenue women voted against me for being a troublemaker.”
In the end, Maggie and justice would be served as Commissioner Hahn made it very clear that county facilities belonged to everyone, not just white residents. As a result of these courageous acts, the County of Los Angeles designated the golf course a historic landmark in April 2020.
In 1982 the facility was renamed Chester L. Washington GC after one of the most prominent African American newspaper owners and editors in Los Angeles. By the mid-’80s, both the men’s club and women’s club were active and healthy. While the women’s club remained predominantly white, the men’s club was the opposite, and the men’s club started to allow women to join, Hattie Harris among them.
Harris was born into poverty in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of six children, she was the youngest and only daughter. She attended Central State, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in Ohio and eventually the USC Gould School of Law.
Drawn to Los Angeles by the weather and some college friends, Harris found work cleaning hotel rooms, doing minor assembly and teaching at an adult learning center, all in the effort to save for law school.
As she began to practice law, she was introduced to golf by an associate and took lessons and played at Roosevelt GC. A law school friend, also an African American woman, named Sheryl Meshack, turned Harris on to the Chester Washington Men’s Club. Within a few years of joining the “men’s club,” Harris was nominated president, a role she held for over 10 years.
Membership in the club climbed to more than 300 during the mid-to-late 1990s under Harris’s leadership and women continue to play major roles in the club to this day.
“Black women work during the week,” Harris explained. “The women’s club played on Tuesdays and that wasn’t an option, so I joined the men’s club since they played on weekends. The men were good to us, and we played right alongside them. But you talk about culture,” Harris paused to laugh. “The culture at Chester has always involved gambling and we were right there gambling with these men.”
Women have long been welcomed into the weekend games and as a result many women would become dues-paying members of the Chester Washington Men’s Club. The name was changed to the Chester Washington Golf Club by Harris in 1996.
Susan Henderson has also served as president. Owner and editor of the Mountain Views News, a weekly publication that serves the San Gabriel Valley, Henderson vividly recalls her first visit to Chester Washington in 1996: “When I lived in Oakland, I belonged to a Black golf club. When I moved to LA, I was living in the Palisades. One day I got a call at my office and my assistant said, ‘There’s a Hattie Harris on the phone from Chester Washington Golf Club.’ I was impressed that she called, so I went.”
What Henderson found was a room full of Black golfers enjoying themselves at a meeting. She felt at home again. “After one club meeting I told all my friends, ‘Don’t call me on the weekends to play! I have found my family!’”
THE ACTION
If you’re going to play with the Chester Washington Golf Club, you’re going to enter into what is called “The Chester Washington Contract,” which is to say, you will be gambling. As longtime member Drew Winzer says, “The Chester Washington Contract isn’t optional. You’re in.”
Everybody has fun, but no one is playing just for fun. There is always action.
Winzer is a longtime member who boasts a career-low round of 64. He’s locked horns with just about every big name that has stepped on property at Chester Washington but he’s just as eager to play with new members like 33-year-old data engineer Dawit Assefa.
“It was cool to play with Drew,” Assefa says. “He showed me the ins and outs, where to miss, where not to, that kind of thing. Might’ve cost me a little money in the end but it was worth it.”
It’s strict Rules of Golf in the club. No breakfast balls, no gimmies, no bumping from divots or footprints. This is a club of purists. The action at Chester Washington can be found Saturdays and Mondays, when the club has standing tee times. The stories of the Monday games in the ’70s and ’80s are the stuff of legend.
“All the best Black players all across America would come here to Chester Washington and play. We used to get a hundred people here on Mondays for the skins games. Lee Elder would come here and play and couldn’t win a skin,” Larry Clemons recalls.
The games were also frequented by many Black athletes in the Los Angeles area who played golf, most notably Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, who was also a confidant and friend to Maggie Hathaway.
“If Maggie ever got thrown in jail for boycotting or protesting, she would call Jim and he’d always bail her out,” Henderson recalled.
The course became a home-away-from-home for many entertainers and athletes looking for a place to relax and have some fun and it was a safe space for celebrities.
A NEW ERA
The club held elections for new officers in December 2023 and Wayne Turner was elected secretary. Turner grew up just around the corner on 116th street and had been playing at Chester Washington since the 1980s. He’s part of a new wave of members that felt it was their turn to serve and do some of the heavy lifting that Harris, Henderson, Gus Robinson, Allen Whitaker, Terrell Powell and others had done for decades.
“At a meeting last year somebody said, ‘It’s time to turn this 1972 Cadillac into a 2024 Ferrari,’ so that’s what we’ve been doing,” Turner shared. His real focus, however, revolves around one word: fellowship. “The game is fun but what’s more important is that we are building and maintaining community here. We are growing and we’re going to keep growing. People should understand that this isn’t about playing [a round of] golf and rushing out of here. You’re going to want to hang out and enjoy the fellowship of the other members.”
Turner also points to local businesses that have helped attract members. “SpaceX is close, we’ve got the new stadium, and new tech companies are popping up, so there’s a big population of potential new members around. Restaurants have donated gift cards to us for giveaways. Callaway Golf and Teemark have been extremely generous. It feels good to see people come together and help us out.”
As for how to turn a ’72 Cadillac into a ’24 Ferrari, Turner added, “Technology is part of it. We use the Golf Genius tournament software we get from the SCGA for all our events now. People like that touch. If someone comes to the club and wants to join, all they have to do is scan a barcode and join. And if you’re not sure and just want to try the club out, we started an Associate Member program, too. These are all SCGA initiatives that have helped us. We also use e-mail blasts, text threads and whatever technology makes it easy to get in touch.”
Since the beginning of 2024, the club has seen a 30 percent increase in members. Four consecutive club tournaments have sold out. Most importantly, the club also established and granted two scholarships. Breana Hill, a freshman at Cal Berkeley, and D’Andre Garmon, a freshman at Long Beach State, were the first recipients.
The Ferrari is starting to purr.
Chris Spanos, who is white, is one of the new members. A native of New Hampshire, he moved to Gardena from the Valley to escape the heat. “I knew from the first round I played with Gus (Robinson) and Ron (Cooper) that I had found my people. They kept talking trash the whole round and I knew I was home.”
Henry Arellano, another new member, is Latino. “I was first invited into the club by Russell Westbrook, Jr. (the father of the NBA star and longtime club member) and what turned me on right away was how welcoming everyone was. It’s like a family and you could really feel that when we had the memorial tournament for Donnie Jones. It was all love, all family.”
Spanos made quite the splash as a new member, almost winning the inaugural Duhon Cup, a tournament that was established as part of an effort to honor the club’s rich past. The tournament is named after the late Alton Duhon, a member of the Chester Washington Golf Club who won the 1982 U.S. Senior Amateur, becoming the second African American to win a USGA championship.
“We’ve had a lot of special people in this club and we’re going to make it a point to honor and remember them. We didn’t get here alone,” Turner said. In addition to the Duhon Cup, the club has started a Hall of Fame, an annual Member Appreciation event and the aforementioned Donnie Jones Memorial, honoring Jones, who served the club for 25 years in various roles, including as vice president, when he passed in April.
As the club looks forward, the advice and service of longtime members is crucial. Willie Brunson, who serves as membership chair, has been a member since 1991. He was hesitant to get in the mix when he started. “I was working at the post office from 10 at night to seven in the morning,” he says. “So me and four or five guys would go play at what is now called the Maggie Hathaway Par 3 after work. When we got better, we moved over to Chester Washington. This was back in 1972 when it was still called Western Avenue, and it cost $3.50.”
Nowadays Brunson greets every new member with a note letting them know that whatever their ability level, they will enjoy their time as a member at Chester Washington. He’s at the course twice a week where he’s still playing to a 10-handicap and recruiting new members. He hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be new, and that’s invaluable as the club continues to expand.
CLUB SECRETARY WAYNE TURNER.
And at the end of the day, the club at Chester Washington is a family. It’s big and eclectic, with aunties and uncles, crazy cousins that show up a few times a year, young bucks that think they know everything and old heads who look to solve all the world’s problems on a weekly basis over a cold pitcher of beer.
One thing is for sure: they would be glad to have you. Because preconceptions and prejudices about people and neighborhoods are just that — preconceptions and prejudices. At Chester Washington Golf Club, neither have ever applied and everyone is welcome. ▪