Promoting diversity in golf at Penn and beyond is the goal of new Quakers men’s coach Clay White

Clay White’s introduction to golf was about as blue-collar as they come.

As the new head coach of the men’s golf team at Penn, his seasoned approach to the sport comes from an unusual upbringing. But that hard-knock tutelage has kept him a mainstay in college golf and helped him find some considerable success. He arrives at Penn after 18 years as the head coach at Seton Hall, departing as the reigning Big East champion and Division I Northeast Region coach of the year.

He took a job at Seton Hall as its equipment manager and stepped up to the plate when there was an opening on the golf coaching staff.

“I’ve never played competitive [golf] at all,” White told The Inquirer. “I really got into golf because I played a bunch of other sports, and I tried to hit a golf ball, and I couldn’t. I was the fourth golf coach in a year and a half. ... I know that I played the game, I didn’t play at a high level, but these guys just needed somebody to be there for them and care about them.”

Now as Penn’s first POC golf coach, White, who is Filipino, has brought that same energy to the Quakers, and his newest crop of golfers is taking notice.

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“It’s early days, but so far [White has] been great,” said Penn captain Mark Haghani. “I think that he’s going to really take the program to where we’re competitive and winning titles.”

Golf is one of the most white-dominated sports in America — in part because many country clubs used to bar minorities from becoming members and generating more of an interest — so there are many people of color who have a disassociation with golf.

Tack on the high costs of equipment (a youth set of beginner clubs can cost hundreds), country club dues, and scheduling tee times, and the cost of being a golfer quickly adds up.

It’s has been such an issue that White is working to find solutions as one of 14 founding members of the Golf Coaches Association of America’s diversity Initiative, which aims to use college golf to “increase opportunities, resources, and mentorship for its minority members,” among other goals.

“[Look], it’s a very expensive game,” White said. “[For us], it’s how do we get clubs into the hands of kids, [but also] how do we keep them in the game? There is certainly a certain look and sort of background that most golfers come from. ... One of [the GCAA committee’s] goals is to start bringing more diversity to the game.”

White is one of just a few people of color who are coaches in collegiate golf, and he’s the only one in the Ivy League — men’s or women’s. Now, the work begins to build the Quakers into a contender and promote the sport to people who may still think it’s not for them.

“There’s certainly a lot of work to be done by the people in golf currently,” he said.

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