Efforts under way to celebrate the legacy of Joe Bartholomew Sr.

6th October 2014   ·   0 Comments

If you think Joseph M. Bartholomew Sr. didn’t love anything as much as he loved the game of golf, you better think again.

Make no mistake about it, the proud New Orleans native loved golf. But he also loved hard work, community service, creating economic opportunities for others, helping those less fortunate and calling his own shots on and off the golf course.

Over the course of his purpose-driven life, Joe Bartholomew was widely known as a golf course architect and a constructor of golf courses, but he also excelled as a real estate investor, entrepreneur, the owner of a construction company and insurance company, a philanthropist and visionary.

If a local group has its way Bartholomew’s accomplishments and contributions will become more widely known throughout New Orleans and the rest of the U.S.

Born August 1, 1881, Joe Bartholomew fell in love with golf as a seven-year-old caddie at the Audubon Golf Course. Long before a golf course was named after him in Pontchartrain Park, Bartholomew traveled to New York to study golf architecture. Upon his return to the Crescent City in 1922, he was tapped to design Metairie’s Golf Course. While his work earned rave reviews from Metairie’s affluent class and raised the bar for courses in the Deep South, once it was completed Bartholomew was banned from the site and was never allowed to hit a single ball on the course he envisioned and brought to fruition.

Despite the adversity and daily indignities associated with life in the South during the Jim Crow era, Bartholomew was adamant about helping those less fortunate and enriching the lives of those around him. It came as no surprise to those who knew him best when he gave the course he envisioned and brought to life in the historic Pontchartrain Park neighborhood to the City of New Orleans.

He and his wife, Ruth, had twin daughters, Ruth and Leontine, and a son, Joe Jr.

Over the course of his life, Bartholomew built a number of courses throughout Louisiana, including City Park No. 1 and City Park No. 2, courses that he was not allowed to play on because of segregation laws. He also designed and constructed layouts in Covington, Hammond, Abita Springs, Algiers and Baton Rouge, among other cities.

His business acumen and drive to succeed paved the way to a very successful life as an entrepreneur, benefactor and philanthropist who donated generously to local civic organizations and Dillard and Xavier universities. In 1971 he passed away after suffering a stroke.

A year later, he became the first Black American inducted into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame. In 1978 New Orleans Mayor Ernest “Dutch” Morial, the city’s first Black mayor, renamed the Pontchartrain Park Golf Course in honor of Joseph M. Bartholomew Sr.

Although it took a while, the Joe Bartholomew Municipal Golf Course was relaunched post Kat­rina in late 2011. Since then, the course has served as an anchor and a beacon of hope for Pontchartrain Park residents.

“It was like a renaissance — it was like an awakening,” Kavoski Stanfill, a member of Friends of the Joe Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course, told The Louisiana Weekly. “That golf course coming back actually woke up that neighborhood and made it look like a real neighborhood in spire of the fact that some of the houses had not been redone. The majority of the houses had been redone, the ones that were closest to the golf course, so it actually lent itself to making the neighborhood look more complete.”

Members of the community recently gathered on the golf course to get a glimpse of a bust of Joe Bartholomew Sr. and an artist’s rendering of a statue honoring the trailblazing New Orleanian. Both will eventually find a home in the Golf Course’s Pro Shop.

The 18-hole, par 72 course is located at 6514 Congress Drive, New Orleans, La. It was donated to the City of New Orleans by Joe Bartholomew Sr. and is now owned and operated by the City of New Orleans Department of Parks and Parkways.

On Wednesday, Oct. 8, Friends of the Joe Bartholomew Golf Course will host a fundraiser at Second Vine Wine, 1027 Touro Street from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Group members say Wednesday’s event is an opportunity for people to come out and enjoy a little wine, learn more about the life of Joe Bartholomew Sr. and get a glimpse of the bust and statue of Bartholomew.

Friends of the Joe Bartholomew Sr. Golf Course have plans to use golf to pass along history to young people and teach them life lessons about discipline and overcoming adversity.

“If we don’t tell the story, it won’t get told,” Stanfill told The Louisiana Weekly. “We’re coupling golf skills with life skills because it is the microcosm of the life that we all have to live.

“Golf can teach you a lot about perseverance, about responsibility, integrity and love.”

“It will also teach you a lot about adjusting to the circumstances for sure because you don’t always hit a good shot but you get a chance to go and hit another one,” Glynn Dexter, president of Friends of the Joe Bartholomew Sr. Golf Course, added.

This article originally published in the October 6, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.