Just over two months ago, Jim Dent did an interview with NBC BLK in which he said he would never have become a pro golfer if he hadn’t first been among the Black caddie corps at Augusta National Golf Club. “It gave me everything I own,” Dent said in the interview of his introduction to the game. “If I didn’t learn how to do caddying, I never would have been a golfer, and I never would have made the little money that I did.”
Dent, an Augusta native who also looped at Augusta Country Club and counted President Dwight D. Eisenhower as one of his assignments at ANGC, was among a handful of Black men from his era to go from carrying the bag to competing in the professional ranks, and he carved out a playing career that spanned four decades. Though the long-hitting Dent didn’t win a tournament on the PGA Tour—and, unfortunately, never earned an invitation into the Masters—he became a formidable competitor in the over-50 circuit, capturing 12 titles on what is now PGA Tour Champions.
Dent, who attended the Masters last month and celebrated Augusta National’s plans to renovate Augusta Municipal Golf Course, or “The Patch,” at which he honed his own golf skills, died on May 2 in the aftermath of a stroke, the PGA Tour reported on its website. He was 85.
At 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds, Dent wowed observers from the start with his length. His mentor at Augusta Municipal, Lawson “Red” Douglas, recalled Dent frequently driving the ball over 300 yards—extraordinary in the era of steel-and-persimmon clubs.
To up his training, Dent moved west to Los Angeles, where many of the best Black players resided, and advanced under the tutelage of Johnny Goodman, renowned for being the last amateur to win the U.S. Open in 1933. Dent also picked up an ardent financial backer in real estate developer Mose Stevens, and he turned pro in 1966.
It would take him four years to earn his PGA Tour card through Qualifying School, and, starting in 1971, Dent maintained his fulltime status for 16 consecutive seasons. His results on the regular tour were modest, with 25 top-10 finishes in 450 starts, with his highest earnings of $46,587 coming in 1974. Dent’s best finish was a runner-up in the 1972 Walt Disney World Open Invitational to Jack Nicklaus, who won by a whopping nine strokes.
All of Dent’s experience seemed to jell once he turned 50, and the power he maintained helped against the older guys. Dent would lead the senior tour in driving in his first five years, and right out of the gate, in his debut in mid-1989, he finished fourth. Dent captured two tournaments in his rookie season and enjoyed his his best campaign the next year, capturing four titles.
In all, Dent made 545 Champions Tour starts over 21 years, finishing with a dozen wins—the last coming in a second straight victory in the 1989 Home Depot Invitational at Quail Hollow. His over-50 earnigns amounted to more than $9 million.
Dent is a member of the African-American Golfers Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in 2022. In 2020, more than six decades after Dent started playing golf at “The Patch,” the road to the course was named Jim Dent Way. The head pro there: Jim Dent Jr.
