If we accept that it’s been difficult these last few weeks to navigate our passion for professional golf through a sea of sordid stories that revolve around excessive gobs of money but are devoid of people with perspective, there are alternatives.

Refresh yourself with the story of Renee Powell, for instance.

Hers is a compelling saga devoid of excessive gobs of money but is filled with people with perspective.

Hers is also a love story with golf against long odds. Consider this nugget that grabbed my attention while perusing the archives. It was a golf tournament in 1961 at Ponkapoag GC in Canton, Mass., where the worlds of two courageous Black female athletes intersected: Powell, then a 15-year-old golf prodigy from Ohio, and Althea Gibson, then 34 and recently retired from her professional tennis career.

“Ohio Girl Crowds Althea for Spotlight at Ponkapoag,” was the drop headline on the Boston Globe story.

The occasion was the annual United Golf Association Championship, which was widely known as the “National Negro Tournament.” To think that such a thing existed remains an embarrassing chapter in our nation’s history, but so it was.

“Miss Powell is one of those girls with a certain advantage, since she almost literally grew up on a golf course,” read the Globe story written by Tom Fitzgerald.

While there is a layer of truth to that statement – Renee Powell’s father, Bill, built and ran his own golf course in East Canton, Ohio – it grossly overlooks the reality that Blacks were not really in possession of anything even resembling a “certain advantage” in 1961, and definitely not in golf. In fact, it wouldn’t be until one month after that “National Negro Tournament” at Ponkapoag that the PGA of America would officially strike “Caucasian-only” from its bylaws.

That in the face of such discrimination these women would blaze trails (Gibson, already the first Black to win one of tennis’ major championships, in ’63 became the first Black member of the LPGA; Powell in ’67 became the second) speaks volumes for their character.

What screams even louder is Powell’s warm embrace of those who made it possible. “I did not get here by myself,” she said. “People opened doors for me.”

Imagine that? Appreciation. Something that is in short supply, if current events in pro golf are being judged.

Now 75, Powell still runs Clearview Golf Club, the course her father built while also working full-time at Timken, a bearing and steel company. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places more than 20 years ago as the first golf course built, owned, and operated by a Black, Clearview is where Renee Powell learned to play golf. It continues to be where she keeps her father’s memory alive with the Clearview Legacy Foundation and with programs that give back, particularly to military veterans.

Honors have come her way, from the PGA of America’s First Lady of Golf in 2003 to being the ninth pro golfer, and first female, presented with a Doctor of Laws degree from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2008. That trip to the “Home of Golf” was an unforgettable memory because it was shared with her father, who would die a year later at the age of 93, and it helps define who Renee Powell is.

She is a bridge to incredible people who should not be forgotten for their athletic accomplishments and commitments to social causes at a time when Black athletes were discriminated against. Mention a hero and Renee Powell can connect.

That tournament at Ponkapoag in 1961 was the first of many times Powell and Gibson teed it up together in competition. “She grew up tough, on her own from the age of 14, and always told me how fortunate I was to have my parents looking after me,” said Powell.

As for Charlie Sifford, the man who in in 1961 was the first Black to become a member of the PGA Tour, Renee Powell first met him when she was 12 and remained friends till his death in 2015.

Our country perhaps has never have had a champion with the character of Olympic icon Jesse Owens and Renee Powell cherishes those times when she was with him.

“We both had (endorsement deals) with Greyhound and would play golf in Phoenix once a year,” she said. “He told me about the indignity of having to have raced against horses.”

Mal Whitfield, a five-time Olympic medalist, became friends with Powell when they both toured Africa with the USO. (Powell has made 25 humanitarian trips to that continent.)

Her friendship with Olympic champion Wilma Rudolph was especially gratifying. She and Powell shared stories about what they had to endure and the deep appreciation they both had for all their brothers and sisters who faced social injustices.

Owens. Gibson. Whitfield. Rudolph. Significant historic figures in the world of athletics, and Powell knew them all.

But it is the connection to Sifford that has her smiling and will have her in the spotlight March 9. On that day, Renee Powell will receive the inaugural Charlie Sifford Award for advancing diversity in golf.

“I was there (in 2004) when Charlie was inducted into the Hall of Fame,” said Powell. “He attended my dad’s funeral (in 2009) and I spoke at his funeral (in 2015). Our family has always been close to his family.”

Her award will be part of a World Golf Hall of Fame ceremony where the featured inductee will be Tiger Woods, who has often praised Sifford for how he opened doors. It’s a good fit.

So, too, is Powell. At a time when golf needs the conversation to be about appreciation and gratitude, she will gladly make sure it is.