She is still here. Still competing. Still fighting for inclusion in golf.
Renee Powell was born in Canton, Ohio in 1946. Her father William Powell built Clearview Golf Club in Ohio, the only golf course in the United States designed, built and operated by a Black American.
Renee grew up on that course and became a scratch golfer. In 1967 she joined the LPGA Tour, becoming only the second Black woman in Tour history after Althea Gibson. She competed on Tour through 1980.
In 2003, Powell became the first American woman to be awarded an honorary membership of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St Andrews — one of the most prestigious honours in world golf.
What makes Renee Powell remarkable is not just her playing record but her lifelong commitment to growing the game for people who have been excluded from it. She has spent decades running junior golf programmes, inclusion initiatives, and community golf events at Clearview Golf Club.
She is still doing it. Renee Powell continues to lead inclusion efforts in golf, working to make the game accessible to people of all backgrounds, incomes and abilities.
TracerLeague Series names its Women's British Open Week competition after Renee Powell because she represents something TLS holds central — that the work is never finished. That inclusion is not a moment but a commitment. That someone has to keep showing up.
She has kept showing up for over fifty years. TLS intends to do the same.
"Golf gave me everything. I want to give it back."
These names are not marketing. They are the foundation. TracerLeague Series was built to be the kind of competition that the people these pioneers fought for can finally call their own. Every time a player enters a Major Week competition they are competing under a name that carries real history, real sacrifice, and real meaning.