Wiley College Graduate Bill Spiller Sued the PGA and Helped Open Professional Golf to Black Players

Did you know that one of the men most responsible for integrating professional golf was a graduate of a historically Black university in Texas? His name was Bill Spiller, and he earned his degree at Wiley College before spending his life battling the racism that kept Black players off the professional tour.

Bill Spiller was born in 1913 in Oklahoma. He went on to earn an education degree from Wiley College, the historically Black institution in Marshall, Texas, where he was a standout athlete. Spiller wanted to become a teacher, but the meager salaries offered to Black educators at the time pushed him to look elsewhere, and he moved to California in search of opportunity.

In Los Angeles, Spiller took work as a Pullman porter, and it was there, around the age of 30, that a coworker introduced him to golf. He fell in love with the game and improved quickly, earning money as a caddy and instructor and dominating the United Golfers Association tour, the circuit run by and for Black golfers, where he won scores of events.

When Spiller tried to compete in tournaments sponsored by the PGA of America, he ran headlong into the organization’s “Caucasians Only” clause, which barred Black players from membership. Rather than accept it, he fought back. As Golf Digest documents, in 1948 Spiller and fellow golfer Ted Rhodes sued the PGA after being denied entry to the Richmond Open, launching a battle that would consume much of his career.

His persistence finally paid off. Spiller worked for years with California Attorney General Stanley Mosk, for whom he had once caddied, to pressure the PGA to change. In 1961, the organization at last removed its “Caucasians Only” clause, opening the door for Black golfers to compete at the highest level.

Bill Spiller died in 1988. Though the fight cost him many of his own best years on the course, his legacy lives on in every Black golfer who followed, from Charlie Sifford to Tiger Woods. He was later granted posthumous PGA membership and inducted into the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame.

From the campus of Wiley College to the front lines of the fight for equality in sports, Bill Spiller helped tear down one of the ugliest barriers in American golf.

We at Watch The Yard would like to commend Bill Spiller for his courageous stand for Black golfers everywhere.