51 though it rebounded significantly after the Covid-19 pandemic. In 1962, a nine-hole par-three golf course was created in Jesse Owens Park, called the Jack Thompson Golf Course. It was renamed in 1997 to honour Maggie Hathaway, a blues singer and actress who became both a golfer and a civil rights activist, and led a campaign to open up Los Angeles’s municipal courses to black players. The facilities at the Maggie are pretty basic. But as a consequence of the US Open that was held at Los Angeles Country Club in 2023 – which, as the crow flies, is less than ten miles from the Maggie but feels like a different world – a huge investment is being made to rebuild the course and associated practice area, and to create a learning centre and programming for local juniors. The project is enormous, given the small and frankly humble nature of the course. The donors include the USGA itself, Los Angeles Golf Club, the team in the TGL indoor golf P h o tPoh: oMt oa:gSgtie pHh eatnhBawa ratyo nG, oSlef cCoonudr sCeo l l e c t i v e The Maggie Hathaway project includes a redesign of the par-three course, reorientation of the driving range and the revamping of practice areas
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