Former Washington Senators baseball player Chuck Hinton, sporting a green Nationals hat and Major League Baseball windbreaker, leaned against a railing outside the Langston Golf Course Club.
“I love [Langston],” he said. “You going on the back nine? Oh man, you’re going to love it. They changed some holes four or five years ago.”
Hinton is the former baseball coach of Jimmy Garvin, the president of Langston Legacy Golf Corp., at Howard University.
“I say I’m watching his back,” Hinton said, gesturing to Garvin. “I usually play Rock Creek Park all day, every day, then when he came over here, so did I.”
Coming out of college, Garvin was heavily recruited to play basketball, football and baseball, and eventually attended Howard on a baseball scholarship. After an arm injury derailed his major league pursuits, Garvin was introduced to the game of golf by Hinton.
Garvin now knows everyone at Langston, which was built as a segregated golf course for African-Americans in 1939. Garvin points out the “Joe Louis tree” on hole No. 3, named because the famous boxer used to pepper the tree with shots on the tough uphill par 5.
Langston now features 18 holes, a driving range and a miniature chip-and-putt course. There are also several programs for children, including the Langston Junior Boys and Girls Golf Club, run by former Pittsburgh Pirate Ray Savoy. Savoy played the course back in the late 1950s when he was a student at what is now the University of the District of Columbia.
Youths from 6 years old to 18 participate in the program, which culminates in scholarship contributions for some of the participants. The ceremony will be held Monday, with about five or six children receiving a total of about $12,000 in scholarships.
“We’re like the second parent — a home away from home,” Savoy said.
The best thing about the course is “the access to the kids,” said Ernie Andrews, who has worked with the youth program Mason’s Army since 1988 teaching underprivileged kids golf etiquette and rules.
“The kids love the course,” he continued. “A majority of the kids [just] really love the course.”
