GOLF: Green Paradise
By Keisha Hayes
Posted: 4:49p.m .est, October 08, 2006

 

James Brim Jake Gaither Golf Course

Their eyes are filled with green…as they survey the 124-acre paradise that’s become their second home. Each weekend James Brim and fellow golfers set out to conquer Jake Gaither Municipal Golf Course. It’s a 9-hole challenge that has kept Brim coming back every week since he started playing there in the late 1950’s. "I started off caddying at another course and became interested in how players would have to get a ball into a hole with the least amount of strokes…that took a lot of concentration. So I started going out to Jake because it was the only black course to play."

 

Jake, as most golfers call it, was opened in 1956. During that time, golf courses were not segregated…but as golfer Aaron Battle remembers certain things were understood. "We could have gone to those others courses…but you felt accepted here…you felt real comfortable here." Named after one of the most winning African American college football coaches, Alonzo "Jake" Gaither, the course, like the coach…had to prove it could stand the test of time. "Back then the course didn’t have proper fairways and we had to walk the entire course. It wasn’t top notch," Battle said. Still golfers kept coming…and as the years passed, Jake was slowly transforming the its urban neighborhood into a more diverse golfing community. Finally in the late 1990’s, at the insistence of another legendary college football coach, Robert Mungen, City Commissioner Ron Weaver, and Leroy Kilpatrick, the city renovated the course.

 

Today, you can ride or walk the course. There are electric golf carts available to travel the now Bermuda grassed fairways. Johnnie Isom, who was a freshman during Jake Gaither’s reign at FAMU, now works at the golf course. "It’s a fairly difficult course. The layout is challenging. It goes from flat terrain, to hilly terrain, to in between."

 

On an exclusive tour of the course…our often scribbled manuscript was a reminder of the unpredictable golf terrain. Isom, our official tour guide, who warned us about landscape…soon showed us that was no match for what golfers refer as the ‘dreaded hole’."Par 6 is called the dreaded hole because of the length of the hole…and the creek." Fortunately, we defeated the 596-yard stretch over the pond without a stroke, choosing to use our imagination and a golf cart ride to get to Par 7. Isom smiled saying it would have taken at least four strokes for the average golfer. But in a sense, there was gold beyond the dreaded hole…because between Par 7, 8 and 9, stood a memorial in honor of the man who made the new Jake possible…Coach Robert Mungen. "Mungen believed in this course. It has really built the community up," Isom said.

 

Jake Gaither Women’s Golf League
Mr. Kilpatrick and youth group at the newly renovated

Mungen passed away last April, but in many ways his vision for Jake lives on.Besides the renovated course and Mungen monument, there’s the new group of golfers he helped bring to the game…the children. Mike Rice, who manages the course, was part-time when Mungen started encouraging kids to play. "He had so many kids. I think he had about 30 or 40 he was working with…so he asked me to help out with the more dedicated players." The kids range in age from 6 to 16 years old. At the time, Rice would take at least four of them out on the golf course with him to improve their game. "We’d play a few holes until dark. I guess Mungen wanted them to see how I played to show them what type of players they could become." As manager now, Rice only works with a couple of kids…but says he’s still very dedicated. "I try to keep them right," Rice said.

 

While Mungen used most of his instruction to help kids…he also spent time helping women learn the intricacies of the game. Irene Perry, head of Jake’s Women’s league…remembers Mungen as one of the first professional instructors to help the women along. "I started the league with a group of women who were in my exercise class. It was about six of us." The group…intrigued by what for years was considered a gentlemen’s game…set out to change golf into a universal sport. With balls donated from Alexander Davis, and professional instruction from Mungen, Leroy Kilpatrick and Anthony Billups (who still remains dedicated to helping the women every week), the group has grown to 18-members. They play every Thursday morning at Jake. "That’s our home course," Perry said.

 

47-years ago, Jake was just a golf course where African Americans felt comfortable playing. Since then, it has helped break racial barriers, close the generation gap…and cross gender lines. It’s a course that gives new meaning to community…one golfer at a time. "I love it for what it stands for," Brim said.

 

Jake Gaither Golf Course 801 Tanner Drive Tallahassee, Florida 32310