This past week, the nation celebrated the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. In this week's Grant Me This, Grant Boone looks at how far golf has come in the battle for civil rights, and how far it still has to go.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

Three decades after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Tiger Woods strode up the 18th fairway at Augusta National knowing he could 13-putt the last hole and still win The Masters. It was an historic moment with Woods poised to become the first African-American to win a major championship.

As he watched from outside the ropes that day, Lee Elder wasn't feeling so much history as he was fear. In 1975, the year Woods was born, Elder became the first black player to compete in The Masters. He'd endured his share of scrutiny, but on this day, he wasn't focused on himself.

As Woods took dead aim at a Masters record and history itself, Elder was afraid someone might take dead aim at Tiger. And not with a golf shot, but a gun shot.

Elder told that story to Nashville sportscaster and my friend Mark Howard (check him out on http://www.1045thezone.com/). Whether or not Elder's fear was justified that day, it does speak volumes about the degree of discrimination faced by his and previous generations. Tiger's initial "Hello World" media blitz included commercials suggesting "There are still places I can't play." Shortly thereafter, it was "Goodbye Ad Campaign" after Woods' camp admitted to using hyperbole in asserting that any club would tell their man to keep out.

Forty years prior, even if the cretins who issued death threats to Charlie Sifford knew how to spell hyperbole, they likely weren't employing it in the hate mail they ceaselessly sent him. Sifford took those threats seriously enough to occasionally pack heat along with the 14 clubs in his bag.

The African-Americans who've played professional golf regularly between Sifford, the first to win a significant TOUR event (the 1967 Greater Hartford Open), and Woods, the world's best player for the last decade, have generally spoken softly (Calvin Peete) and carried big sticks (Jim Thorpe). Sifford's been the most outspoken of the bunch, perhaps because he faced the most persecution.

For much of the 1950s, Sifford had proven his ability on the course but couldn't join the PGA because of a written stipulation in the association's by-laws that allowed only white members. After years of defending his right to play, Sifford finally went on the offensive.

In 1959, Sifford appealed to California Attorney General Stanley Mosk, a civil rights hero who would later ascend to supreme court justice of that state. When the 1962 PGA Championship was scheduled to be played at the all-white Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, Mosk told the governing body of professional golf to pick up its ball and go somewhere else. The PGA did just that, announcing plans to move the event to another whites-only club, Aronimink in Philadelphia. But a groundswell of support for Sifford and other black players had already formed and the PGA lifted its infamous Caucasians-only clause in November of '61.

Sifford would later say his best golf was already behind him by the time he was granted membership into the PGA. Still, he won the '67 GHO and, fittingly, the Los Angeles Open in 1969, sandwiching his two official TOUR wins around the death of MLK.

At least Sifford eventually played the TOUR. Others weren't as fortunate. Ted Rhodes was a fantastic player in the 1940s and '50s and, by all accounts, utterly capable of challenging the best players of his day had he been permitted PGA membership. (You might recall Tiger Woods specifically referencing Rhodes' efforts to open golf to African-Americans after Woods won his first Masters in 1997.)

Rhodes was the personal pro of heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis, who would later bankroll Rhodes' playing career on the United Golf Association Tour, which was made up mostly of black players who couldn't tee it up anywhere else. Rhodes won more than 100 tournaments on that tour and eagerly played against the best white players of his day whenever allowed, including the 1948 Los Angeles Open where he finished in the top 25.

He died a week after I was born, but the very first golf lessons I ever had were at Ted Rhodes Golf Course in both his and my native Nashville. Lots of African-Americans played there, in part I think because Rhodes' name on the sign out front made the place feel more welcome than other courses in town.

In the 45 years since professional golf was formally integrated, there've been plenty of unpleasant race-related incidents, most notably the Shoal Creek showdown in 1990 when founder Hall Thompson famously said about his all-white enclave on the eve of hosting the PGA Championship, "We don't discriminate in every other area except the black?" Once exposed, Shoal Creek caved to pressure from civil rights groups and, more importantly, TV sponsors who were threatening to pull millions of dollars of advertising. The club admitted an African-American member at the 11th hour, and the championship went ahead as scheduled with approximately no one other than his immediate family remembering that Wayne Grady won.

Augusta National, which by virtue of running its own "tunamint" plays by its own rules, added its first black member shortly thereafter; and the PGA TOUR thusly adopted a policy mandating that its host courses have open membership standards.

I can't help but wonder what would've happened had the whole Shoal Creek imbroglio gone down on Tiger's watch. Would he have been willing to boycott a major championship? Perhaps it's a testament to how he's helped changed the game, but it's virtually impossible to imagine a tournament today holding any position that would jeopardize the presence of the world's most popular athlete.

The bigotry that remains in golf today is more hushed. Like the comment made by an executive of my former employer, PGA TOUR Radio Network. In 1997, while in Nashville to do a Champions Tour event, a group of us went to the Grand Ole Opry. On the way in, the executive said to my friend and fellow announcer Randy Brown, "You know what I like about this place? There ain't no n------." To his credit, Randy rebuked the remark, risking his own job security in so doing. (By the way, there also ain't no PGA TOUR Radio Network anymore, at least in part because that particular executive was also biased against things like telling the truth and running a profitable business.)

I have no idea what MLK would say to golf's powers-that-be on this, the week we celebrate not only his birth but also the rebirth of the way a nation thinks about itself. I think he'd score it a victory that golf is enjoying its greatest era of popularity with an African-American as the game's best player. But I also think he'd at least question why Tiger Woods has been the only black player on TOUR during his phenomenal run of success. And why you only need one golf glove to count the number of women of color on the LPGA Tour in the years since his death.

More than anything, though, I think he'd encourage us, whether we're on the golf course or walking into the Grand Ole Opry, to do what my friend Randy did. And when you encounter bigotry or injustice of any kind, take a stand against it. I know changing the world one decision at a time sounds either hokey or impossible or both. But a man can dream can't he?

Yes, he can. Thanks, Dr. King. And happy birthday.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. His column appears on PGA.com each Wednesday and every day during major championships and other big events. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.