TUCSON, Ariz. — Kirk Triplett made headlines last summer when he put a Black Lives Matter sticker on his golf bag.
“I put it on there because this is how I feel and I want people to maybe start a conversation or understand. And that was pretty easy, all I had to do was tell my story, because that’s how I ended up there,” he said on Wednesday at the Omni Tucson National Golf Course ahead of the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic.
Triplett and his wife, Cathi, have four children, twins Conor and Samuel, daughter Alexis and their youngest, Kobe, whom they adopted. Kobe’s biological mother is Japanese, his biological father is Black.
Quentin Williams, founder and CEO of Dedication 2 Community, a national non-profit that educates and empowers communities on diversity, belonging and equity, says he remembers reading about Triplett’s BLM sticker.
“When I saw that, I was just blown away because we hadn’t heard anybody from the golf industry talk about this issue quite like Kirk,” Williams said. “It’s because of his experiences, because it’s in his home and it’s because of the person he is. He’s an open-minded individual. So with all of that, it was a perfect storm.
Kirk Triplett poses with his golf bag with a Black Lives Matter sticker on it at the 2020 Bridgestone Senior Players Tournament pro-am on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020, Akron, Ohio, at Firestone Country Club. (Photo: Phil Masturzo/ Beacon Journal)
“We knew we had something special that would pioneer in some arenas that hadn’t ordinarily been addressing these issues. That’s a big deal. If golf does this and does it well, that means that everybody else will have a mandate to do it, there will be no choice.”
Triplett is now partnering with D2C. His golf bag features a prominent D2C logo and throughout the year, he will participate in awareness and education programs.
“Kirk, he moves on stuff, he takes action, so we like that,” Williams said. “We’re about action, we’re not about discussion. Awareness is great, but without action, it means nothing. So this is all about action through the simple methodologies of education and using that recipe for reconciliation.”
As for that BLM sticker, Triplett says the response he received was across the board.
“The reaction was, I would say, 90 percent supportive from sponsors to tournament people, the media staff, media interests. But like my wife said, she said, ‘Don’t read Twitter tonight.’
“So, you know, there was some stuff. There was a few things, and I saved a few of them because, kind of interesting, I guess I expected that, but I guess I’m just always surprised that people will reach that far out and say some things. But overall it’s been fantastic.”
He did tell a story about a letter he got in the mail.
“I just have to share it because it was just listing all the different lives that matter. And I get that and I understand all of those things. … At the very bottom it said, ‘I hope you make lots of bogeys’ with four frowny faces. This is a hand-written letter that came to my house. When you see stuff like that, I guess you know you’re on the right track.”
Some of the roots of Triplett’s interest in speaking out grew during the pause in professional golf last year due the COVID pandemic, which gave him time to think.
“The events of the summer and the spring, especially George Floyd’s death, really got me thinking more and more,” Triplett said. “I have twin boys that are 25. When they got their driver’s license you have that talk with your kids about what happens when you get stopped by the police. You know, ‘Here’s your driver’s license and your registration and you do what the police officer asks you to do.’
“So my youngest son, nine years younger, right, I’m having that same conversation with him a few years ago and same thing, ‘Show them your registration, show them your license and you do what he asks you to do, right?’ But there was just a different level of urgency. Like, ‘You do what he asks you to do, right?’
“We had that conversation kind of more than once and it just struck me that that is something that needs to be addressed. That’s not fair that I have a different conversation with my African American son than I have with my two Caucasian sons.”
Triplett’s conversations on race, diversity and equality are also finally taking place on the course with golfers he’s known for decades.
“I’ve been playing with these guys for 40 years and we never talked about race one time,” he said. “And the conversations have been good. Some players are like, ‘Oh, gosh, I can say something about it,’ because it’s not something that you would normally sit around and talk about. I think that’s sort of my point, that I think everybody was ready to have some of these conversations and it’s okay to have them in the golf world.
“The golf industry, the golf world, it’s a tremendous demographic. There are great people that play the game, it’s a well-educated group, it’s a group that’s already bent on charitable pursuits like the (Tucson) Conquistadors (who run the Cologuard Classic), trying to make their community a better place.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to make my community a better place and use golf to do it.”
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