If nothing else, the game gave direction to an eighth-grade dropout who by his own admission 13 years later, “was pretty lost in life.”
But as a Black kid growing up in Tallahassee, Johnson began to realize golf also had its limits, even as his abilities grew. Across the country in Los Angeles, Ken Bentley was unfamiliar with Johnson’s story, but knew many like it.
“He was one of those guys who was going to be a statistic,” Bentley said. “Just happened to go by a golf course and saved his life.”
Bentley set out to improve the odds for young men from similar backgrounds, facing similar roadblocks in golf and in life.