On October 19, 2024, Seattle’s Jefferson Park Golf Course was officially renamed the Bill Wright Golf Complex. Members of the Friends of Bill Wright Committee, as well as the city’s dignitaries and representatives of the region’s golf industry, were on hand to honor the occasion, held at the newly-renamed Bill Wright Clubhouse at the golf course in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood.
[gallery align="right" style="slider" ids="https://wagolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Berdell-Knowles.jpg|Berdell Knowles Jr. spoke at the re-naming ceremony. He is president of Fir State Golf Club, one of the clubs affiliated with the golf course, and of which Bill Wright was an early junior member and longtime supporter.,https://wagolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Bill-Wright-1959.jpg|Bill Wright in 1959, the year of his historic victory. (USGA Archives),https://wagolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Bill-Wright-GC-logo.jpg|Bill Wright Golf Complex logo,https://wagolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Bill-Wright-GC-sign.jpg|The new sign at Bill Wright Golf Complex"]
Wright etched his name in golf history by winning the 1959 U.S. Amateur Public Links, the first Black to win a USGA national championship. He learned to play the game at Jefferson Park, as a junior member of the golf course’s Fir State Golf Club. He would go on to play professionally, competing in the 1966 U.S. Open and qualifying for five U.S. Senior Opens. He was a longtime golf instructor in Southern California, and has been enshrined in the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J.. Wright was inducted into the Western Washington University Athletic Hall of Fame for both golf and basketball, and in 2013 was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame. He passed away in 2021 at the age of 84.
Opened in 1915, Jefferson Park Golf Course was the first municipal course in the state, and was so popular that by 1920 was seeing over 100,000 rounds played each year. It is the home of First Tee Greater Seattle, and along with Bill Wright counts Fred Couples as one of its famous golfers who learned the game on its fairways.
