"Champ family's road from racism to Tour winner"

The Champs

Nice work here from GolfChannel.com’s Tim Rosaforte to shed a little more light on the background and development of long-hitting Cameron Champ, winner for the first time on the PGA Tour last week.

This on grandfather Mack, who got Cameron into golf and who got the first phone call last Sunday before the winning card was even signed.

From the plastic clubs he first started swinging in his grandpa’s backyard at age 2, to the set of Tiger Woods irons Mack brought home, from the hours they spent at the par-3 Foothills Golf Center in Sacramento, to a win in his second start as an exempt member of the PGA Tour, the biggest hitter in tournament golf wouldn’t be the biggest hit in this week’s Shriners Hospital For Children Open in Las Vegas without his “Pops.”

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Mack said when we spoke on Monday evening. “I knew one of these days he was going to get there. I didn’t think it was going to get there that soon. It’s just amazing to see the progress from a boy until now.”