Lookback: Calvin Peete's Unorthodox Phoenix Open Win

If there's any excuse to go down a rabbit hole—I will do so, gladly. And my latest venture was sparked this tweet from the PGA TOUR.

Calvin Peete isn't a name that's celebrated enough for me. Names like Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford, and Renee Powell are the usual ones to circulate as the Black pioneers in golf. The man doesn't get enough credit—because before there was a Tiger Woods—Peete sat on the throne of having the most amount of wins of any Black golfer in history. All while also being one of the most accurate drivers in TOUR history.

But perhaps what truly made him great wasn't just is accuracy, but also his unnerving resiliency.

Image: Calvin Peete Chips A Shot From A Bunker During The 1985 Masters Tournament (Photo by Augusta National/Getty Images)

He was a product of Detroit, Michigan but as a boy his family would move down south to Florida, where Peete would subsequently forfeit his education to help his father harvest crops from corn fields. With 18 siblings, working was the only way to ensure that he would get what he needed.

Remarkably, it wasn't until he was in his 20s when Peete first picked up a golf club, and all because his friends tricked him into thinking he was going to a clambake. Crazy right?

Peete left his family down in Florida once he was a young man to start selling jewelry and clothes from his 1956 Plymouth station wagon in western New York. But on one summer day, he and some friends were heading to one of their clambakes hangs when suddenly, they wound up at Genesee Valley Golf Club in Rochester.

Legend has it, Peete's friends said to him, "Calvin, we got you out here, you either play golf or wait until we finish." And the rest is sort of history.

Like so many of us, Mr. Peete got bit by the golf bug and it became his life's work. He was a self-taught golfer using the pages of Ben Hogan’s classic instruction book Five Lessons as his guide. And that homemade swing had to accommodate for his left arm that he broke as a child.

A late bloomer to the game, with natural ailments, teaching himself the game—it doesn't get anymore underdog coded than this.

It took Peete three tries at Q School before earning his playing privileges in 1975. Four years later, he secured his first title at the 1979 Greater Milwaukee Open, making him the fourth Black golfer to win on the PGA TOUR.

RELATED: Pete Brown, The First Black Man to Win a PGA TOUR Event Was No One-Hit Wonder.

He'd go on to win 11 more times, including a win at the 1985 WM Phoenix Open—which perhaps was the most unique win of his coveted career. Peete suffered an allergy attack that severely impaired his vision, causing him to heavily rely on longtime caddie Adolphus 'Golf Ball' Hull to keep the ship steady.

Image: Calvin Peete 1985 The Players Championship Photo by Ruffin Beckwith/PGA TOUR Archive

Peete was mainly impacted during the third round, which he heroically battled to shoot a 72, even par before sealing the deal on Sunday with a final round 68. "Really, I felt that I was not going to be able to play today," Peete said after the victory. "The irritation that I was suffering from yesterday was very painful all day long ... it eased up, but it was a very slow process."

The "People's Open" lore just gets better and better. Happy WMPO week, golf fans!

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