Every time I drive through the entrance to Kiawah Island Golf Resort, something about the place quiets my soul. Sandwiched between a pristine ribbon of Atlantic beach and the Kiawah River, it feels like a sanctuary designed to slow your heartbeat.
Set amid the marshes of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, it remains one of my happy places. With five championship courses crafted by some of the game’s great architects, each laid into the natural landscape, it is the kind of place where stress slips away faster than a downhill putt on a slick green. And that is before you even tee off.
For more than 20 years, this setting has hosted an annual gathering of aging Black male business professionals who come to compete for two trophies that could not be more different. One is the coveted Black Jacket. The other is the not so coveted Pink Stilettos.
Over three days, the Black Jacket Tournament tests our golf skills across three of Kiawah’s challenging courses, using a modified Stableford scoring system that rewards points for bogeys and better. The player who finishes with the most points above his established average earns the Black Jacket. The one with the biggest deficit walks away with the acrylic case containing the pink pumps.
Tradition requires that the pumps be displayed in a prominent place at home or in the office. This rule has inspired more than one wife, including my own, to say, “You had better not come home with those damn pumps.” The truth is that most of us devote much more energy to avoiding the pink pumps than to winning the jacket.
We rolled up to Turtle Point Golf Course dressed to impress. Bright shirts, white hats and black pants created just enough coordinated flair to make the starter raise an eyebrow. Jack Nicklaus’ elegant but unforgiving design greeted us immediately.
The fairways look generous from the tee, yet a slightly errant tee shot and you are dealing with lagoons, tree lines or the out-of-bounds backyards of multimillion-dollar homes. The greens are spacious but deceptive, and one overly aggressive approach can leave your ball in pampas grass or the hidden swimming pool in some unsuspecting homeowner deck beyond the green.
Add the steady ocean breeze and club selection becomes as much feel as calculation. But when you reach the stretch of three seaside holes on the back nine, two par 3s with a short par 4 sandwiched between them, the Atlantic takes center stage. The surf rolls in, salt sharpens the air, and the stately Sanctuary hotel rises in the distance like a quiet guardian. By the end of the first round there were no clear favorites for the Black Jacket or the Pink Pumps.
Day two was moving day. We gathered at Osprey Point, Tom Fazio’s tribute to the Lowcountry. The mid-morning sun shimmered off the marsh. Ospreys circled lazily above us. Alligators sunned themselves along the banks of the lagoons. Fazio’s links-style routing twists through the landscape in a way that feels both natural and intentional. We all fear the par three third hole which demands a full carry over the marsh to a wide but shallow green guarded by bunkers. Most of us are just thankful to find those bunkers rather than watch our dimpled white dots sink among the green and yellow cord grass in the marsh. By the end of the round, with more balls at the bottom of lagoons and marshes than anyone cared to admit, the competition for both trophies narrowed to three or four potential champions or victims.
That evening, as the sun’s late yellow light slipped behind the horizon, the earlier buzz of heroic recoveries and missed putts softened. Our conversations shifted from golf to topics that felt far more personal. PSA scores, blood pressure readings, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar numbers replaced birdies and bogeys. Twenty years ago when I first joined the group, this would have been an unlikely turn in the discussion, perhaps even more unlikely than one of us breaking par.
Around the table, nearly every man had a story. One described being diagnosed as pre-diabetic. Another talked about yearly MRI scans to monitor a recently detected low-grade prostate cancer. Others discussed statins for cholesterol, ACE inhibitors for blood pressure, and metformin for diabetes. The talk about hypertension struck a chord for me, as my blood pressure at my annual checkup only weeks earlier was higher than my usual reading of 120 over 80 for the first time in my life.
The statistics support our concern. Black men are nearly twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as white men. Rates of diabetes and hypertension are also much higher. These conditions often stem from stress, diet, limited preventive care, and the reluctance many men feel about seeking medical help before symptoms become too severe to ignore.
On that clear Fall evening, with the cool ocean breeze rolling across the dunes and glasses of bourbon on the table, a group of men who once might have believed that taking medication was a sign of weakness chose openness over silence. We chose health and honesty over bravado.
The next morning we met at Cougar Point, Gary Player’s welcoming masterpiece and the first course you see upon entering the resort, for the final round. With wide fairways, generous greens, and a couple of par fives that whisper temptation, it was the perfect place to determine who would earn the Black Jacket and who would return home with the Pink Pumps. The Black Jacket contest had narrowed to a duel between me and one other golfer. The Pink Stilettos now had four golfers scrambling to avoid both embarrassment and being locked out of their home.
A drive down the right side of the tree-lined first fairway, settling just left of a bunker, left me with a high gap wedge to two feet. The resulting birdie was the start I needed. A pitching wedge over a pond to ten feet on the par three second led to another birdie. After a pair of bogeys on the remaining holes on the front nine, I made the turn at even par. A quick check of the scoreboard showed my closest competitor with only one birdie and four over par on the front. Despite shaking legs, trembling hands, and an approach shot to the eighteenth green that dropped into the water a foot short, I held on and captured the Black Jacket by a comfortable margin.
The Pink Pumps went home with a previous winner, which was a relief to everyone because we knew his wife would still let him in the house.