The hurt was evident in her eyes. "They called it the Nigger Nine," she said. "Indeed some of them still do, despite the fact that we extended to 18 holes 22 years ago." Renee Powell was talking about the golf course her father built, which is celebrated in one of two, wonderfully uplifting books, recently published in the US.

Clearview: America's Course deals with the saga of William Powell's determination back in 1946 to design, build and own his own course. The other book, A Course of Their Own is a history of the struggle by black Americans to gain recognition in golf, which denied them access for decades.

These are not triumphant, Tiger tales. Indeed they are light years removed from the million-dollar achievements of the world number one. And it seems richly ironic that there should be a need for such publications at a time when Tiger Woods is the most dominant figure in the game.

But change is painfully slow, so slow in fact that Renee Powell remains the only black American to be a member of both the LPGA and the PGA of America. We met at Firestone, where she also had other business to take care of in her capacity as a consultant for the First Tee programme, which was launched three years ago by USPGA Tour Commissioner, Tim Finchem, in the hope of opening up the game to underprivileged youngsters.

She talked about the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America having 16,000 members, of whom only 29 are black. And two of those happen to be her 83-year-old father, who still supervises matters at Clearview and her brother Lawrence, who is the course manager.

Clearview, where the weekday green-fee is a modest $25 is a beautifully-manicured public course in East Canton, about 13 miles from Firestone. Measuring about 6,000 yards and with a par of 69, it would have no pretensions to rival its illustrious neighbour, where, incidentally, access is possible only in the company of a member and for a green-fee of $150.

"At the time we were expanding to 18 holes in 1978, our clientele was as much as 98 per cent white," said Renee, who fills the role of resident professional. "Now it's about 90 per cent and changing all the time." And a further upsurge in traffic is expected after a major upgrading of the facility involving architects Pete Dye and Michael Hurdzan and with the support of the PGA of America, is completed next spring.

She went on: "I was a full-time competitor on the LPGA Tour, but my only tournament victory, in fact, was in Surfers' Paradise in Brisbane, Australia." Strong friendships endure and she clearly enjoyed challenging the dominance of such luminaries as JoAnne Carner, Jan Stephenson and Nancy Lopez. But life on tour wasn't quite that simple.

"Most of the players treated me fine but I got quite a bit of hate mail," she went on. "There were letters containing death threats and the remarkable thing was that most of them were actually signed. It was as if they wanted to be sure I knew how much they hated me.

"Last winter, the LPGA celebrated their golden jubilee and I found it sad that in its 50 years existence, there have been only three black-American players - Althea Gibson, myself and a youngster named Laree Sugg, who is trying to make a name for herself right now. That's really amazing if you stop to think about it."

Old friends met up again in Greenbay, Wisconsin, towards the end of August when she played in the inaugural LPGA Seniors' tournament. But with a knowing smile, she hastened to add that the agelimit was 43, specifically with a view to having the charismatic Lopez in the field.

RETURNING to family matters, she expressed great pride in writing the foreword to her father's book which also carries an introduction by Jim Awtrey, chief executive of the PGA of America.

The author, Ellen Susanna Nosner, to whom the central character told his story, said: "The importance of the book is that it documents a part of history we don't like to acknowledge. It also shows children of all economic or social circumstance how to dream, work hard and claim their right to equality, including and especially, recreation."

William Powell, who is remarkably sprightly for his age, talked about his struggle. "What I went through isn't like what Jackie Robinson in baseball or Marion Motley in football did," he said. "I had to use my own money. I didn't have a team."

After his discharge as a sergeant from the US military in the wake of World War II, he returned to Ohio and discovered the harsh realities of golfing life for the black community there. "When I was in England during the War, I played on some fine courses, like Southampton and Bury St Edmond's," he said. "But they wouldn't let me play here at home."

He recalled a defining moment in his decision to build a course of his own. It happened at the Tam O'Shanter club in north-eastern Ohio where, incidentally, Joe Louis was turned away when he was the reigning world heavyweight champion. Though Powell was permitted to play, he claimed it was made abundantly clear to him that he wasn't welcome.

So, he set about following his dream. The upshot was that with the support of friends, he raised enough money to buy a 78-acre farm in East Canton, which is still home to himself and his family.

The book recounts how he pulled out all the old farm fence-posts with his bare hands, one by one. How he picked up every stone by hand and how he seeded every fairway which he treated with his own, hand-mixed fertiliser. It was almost 50 years before his achievement was publicly acknowledged.

In 1992, the Powells were nominated by the National Golf Foundation in the US as the Jack Nicklaus Family of the Year. Five years later, William was made an honorary member of the Northern Ohio section of the PGA of America. Then in 1999, the PGA of America made him a Life Member. Meanwhile, the local Baldwin-Wallace College conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters on him in June 1998.

"I didn't build this course for blacks, I built it for anybody who wanted to play golf and be treated good," he insisted. "I've done something no one else has done. I'm different, but the public doesn't know it. That's why we did the book. It's a book about life, not about golf."

There is another legacy. With money from the Tiger Woods Foundation in conjunction with The First Tee, two university scholarships, named after William Powell and his late wife Marcella, are offered each year to high-school graduates who have had to overcome serious adversity, of any kind.

Meanwhile, William Powell is already planning another book. As his daughter explained: "He wants to return to England in November and re-trace his wartime experiences there, including those as a golfer, before he came home to build Clearview."

A Course of Their Own by John H Kennedy, contains quite a few familiar accounts of the struggle by black golfers to gain acceptance in a white man's game.

Still, the fleshed-out stories bear repeating, if only to highlight the extent to which discrimination still exists.

There is the story of how black teenager John Shippen and Oscar Bunn, a full-blooded native American, almost caused a walk-out by the other competitors when they were entered in the US Open at Shinnecock Hills in 1896. And in a fascinating twist, 104 years on, Tiger Woods and native American Notah Begay, are expected to become one of the leading American pairings in the President's Cup match in Virginia next month.

Then there was the story in the Atlanta Journal of 1955 which began: "Five Negroes played golf on Atlanta's North Fulton course

Saturday. They were the first Negroes to play on a public course since the city was ordered on Thursday to open golf facilities to them."

Jim Murray, the late lamented sports columnist of the "Los Angeles Times" was fearless in his condemnation of discrimination in golf. Writing about the grim times before Charlie Sifford became the first black golfer to win an official American Tour event, Murray savagely described the game as essentially "the recreational arm of the Ku Klux Klan."

He went on: "The Masters, which loved to invite some obscure golfer from Formosa but never invited a black American, ought to send a car for Charlie." As it happened, they didn't. That distinction would come to Lee Elder, in 1975.

The manner of his qualification for Augusta is recounted beautifully by Kennedy, who writes: ". . . . Americans opened their sports pages to a picture of a black man weeping into a towel. In a voice choked with emotion, he was telling his wife over the telephone: `Baby, we did it! We finally did it, baby. We finally won."

William Powell would have no difficulty in empathising with those words. In a moving conclusion to his book, he says: "My story is now yours. My soul is now unbound. May the struggle and triumph of my life wrap itself around you with a healing and understanding that sends the message to forgive and move on."

Then: "Write on your heart that hope triumphs over bitterness, and love conquers hate."