Golf has its own rhythms before anybody reaches the first tee. There are clubs to choose, rules to learn and enough unfamiliar language to make a beginner aware of everything they do not know. Then there is the question that has little to do with the mechanics of a swing: Who are you going to play with?
Around Milwaukee, We Black We Golf has built its community in the space between those questions.
The Milwaukee-area nonprofit grew from a Facebook group started by Martin Marshall Jr., a golfer who had encountered the difficulty of finding people to join him on the course. Its name came from another experience. WBWG’s account says Marshall was viewed suspiciously while golfing and responded with the words that eventually became the group’s identity: We Black, We Golf.
The precise wording of that exchange varies in published accounts, as does some of the chronology surrounding WBWG’s earliest years. What followed is clearer. A social media group became a golf community with clinics, outings, youth instruction, mentorship and gatherings designed to give people more than an introduction to the game.
That distinction matters because learning how to hit a golf ball and becoming a golfer are not necessarily the same thing.
WBWG’s programming moves between instruction and connection. In 2026, its Sunday Fundays included beginner-focused sessions at Lincoln Park Golf Course and gatherings at other Milwaukee County courses. Its winter clinic offered more structured instruction, while youth programming has brought children onto local courses with equipment available for them to use.
Sometimes, WBWG takes golf away from the course altogether. Richard “Rich” Badger, the organization’s director and golf mentor, has described using mobile driving-range equipment to put clubs directly into people’s hands in community settings.
The approach removes some of the practical uncertainty around starting. A new golfer does not necessarily need to arrive with clubs, an established foursome or an understanding of how everything works.
Badger’s role changes in those moments, too.
“I’m not a golfer at that point,” he said during a July 2026 Civic Media interview. “I’m a teacher.”
The teaching can begin with a grip or a swing, but WBWG’s public programming suggests that the lesson does not have to end there.
At a women’s Sunday Funday discussed by Badger and golfer and coach Amani Stingley in 2026, instruction shared space with something less technical. Women could meet other women who were interested in playing. The possibility was that those introductions might continue after the clinic itself.
That is where access begins to look different.
A public golf course can be open to anyone and still leave a first-time player without someone to call for a Saturday round. A clinic can explain what club to use without creating the relationships that make somebody want to come back. WBWG has built social connection into the environment around instruction, even as available reporting does not yet establish how many beginners remain active golfers because of it.
Ti-Mara Minefee-Tribble offers one documented glimpse of what continued participation can look like.
When TMJ4 reported on WBWG in 2021, Minefee-Tribble was one of roughly 13 first-time golfers participating in an eight-week clinic in Oak Creek. Before entering the program, she told the station she had thought of golf as “something rich people play.”
Her story did not stop with the clinic. Reporting five years later documented Minefee-Tribble’s continued involvement with WBWG and her son’s subsequent involvement in golf.
The path from unfamiliarity to participation is part of what WBWG has been trying to make less complicated.
Equipment is one piece of that. WBWG supplies clubs during some clinics and helps people who want to continue playing identify affordable starter sets. Knowledge is another. Its programming has included beginner instruction alongside outings where golfers can continue playing.
Then there are the people.
WBWG describes itself as open to people of all backgrounds while being intentional about the community at the center of its work.
“We are open to everyone, but we’re intentional about serving our primary demographic,” Badger told Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service in 2026.
That intention extends into youth golf. WBWG has offered a free children’s clinic, generally at Noyes Park Golf Course, with equipment supplied. In 2025, the organization also partnered with First Tee — Southeast Wisconsin for the Fellowship Youth Clinic at Currie Park Golf Course, where young golfers moved through putting, chipping and full-swing instruction with community mentors.
For adults, golf can also occupy the space where social and professional circles overlap.
WBWG’s membership materials describe networking opportunities and an optional business roster alongside golf events. Badger has been explicit about the professional possibilities he sees in the game.
“Golfing is not just a leisure activity,” he told Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. “It can be a professional skill and become your extended office.”
The available reporting does not quantify how many business relationships have emerged through WBWG, and the organization’s current paid membership count has not been publicly verified. Its online reach and its in-person participation are also different measurements and should not be collapsed into one number.
Earlier snapshots show the community’s growth without fully defining its present scale. TMJ4 reported about 400 members in 2021. Later reporting said the Facebook community had grown beyond 7,500 followers around the world. Neither figure establishes WBWG’s current membership or how many people regularly meet on Milwaukee-area courses.
Still, the activities taking place offline have continued to widen.
There are Sunday gatherings and structured clinics, youth instruction and outings. The Midwest Open has brought golf together with social events over a weekend. WBWG has also traveled around Wisconsin with its mobile golf setup, carrying the beginning of the experience to people who might not otherwise make their first attempt on a course.
National participation data provides some context without telling the Milwaukee story by itself. The National Golf Foundation has reported that Black golfers accounted for 28 percent of the net growth in active on-course golfers during a recent five-year period and make up about 7 percent of the active on-course golfer base. Black participation, in other words, is growing even while representation remains limited.
WBWG sits inside that change without waiting for a national trend to define what its community should look like.
Its work begins closer to the ground: somebody learning where to put their hands on a club, a child trying a swing with equipment already there, women meeting other women who might want to play again.
The course is part of it. So is knowing who might be there the next time.
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