Carrie Purnell Russell: Educator and Professional Golfer (1929 - 2012)

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Carrie Purnell Russell
LPGA

Carrie Dale Purnell was born May 21, 1929, the fourth daughter and the ninth child of the late Ira Rufus E. and Sally Mary Purnell, in Berlin, Maryland. Her early education was in the segregated Worcester County Public School System.

Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled in Delaware State College, now Delaware State University (DSU), in 1949, graduated in 1953, and received her Master’s Degree in Health and Physical Education from West Chester State College, now West Chester State University, in Pennsylvania. On September 12, 1953, she married Alfred Russell, a Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force, and they traveled the world. She taught both English and Physical Education in various schools from Maryland to Japan.

When the couple settled in the Dover, Delaware area, she became an instructor at Delaware State College (DSC) where she taught Physical Education to majors and specialized in teaching many adult beginners swimming. She also coached the Women’s Basketball team at DSU, and was named the Hornet’s Women’s Basketball Coach for the 1976-77 season. She stated, “They would like to win as many games as possible and believe that there was a future for women’s sports at Delaware State and that the team is not going to be afraid of anybody.” When she took over the coaching staff and responsibilities of the women’s team, Carrie Russell was already a pro golfer on the Ladies PGA (Professional Golfers Association) tour and had been a former coach at Dover High School. It was her first coaching assignment since 1972.


Carrie Russell enjoyed coaching the women’s basketball team. However, anyone who met her knew that her first love was golf. Her first swing of a golf club was in 1953, the year she graduated from Delaware State College. Her husband Alfred, who was stationed with the Air Force in Texas, took her to a Texas A & M course for military people, and she had a good time. However, she did not touch a club again for seven years until she started working at a driving range at Yakato Air Force Base in Japan. It was there that she fell in love with the sport. She became a strict student of the game, eventually joining the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Teaching Division in 1974 and it took her back to her alma mater where she coached the Hornet’s women’s basketball team.

Carrie Russell Coaching
LGPA

One of her nephews, Vaughn White, asked Carrie Russell, why she began to play golf? Her reply was that...

...”She and Al were newlyweds and he was stationed in Japan. He would
leave the house at a very early hour and spend the whole day on the golf
course. Being a new bride, she decided to go out and find him at the golf
course. When she stepped into the Pro Shop and asked if anyone had seen
Al Russell, the attendant answered. “Yes, he just finished lunch and went
out to play his second round of 18 holes of golf.” At that point, she said to
herself that if a sport excited him to that extent and I have played many
sports, I must learn it. From that point on she did everything to learn golf
and became a proficient player and teacher.”

By 1981, Carrie Russell had developed a competitive team from the varsity golf program. She said, “It was a challenge to teach people the game of golf and scores, but her number one thing now was to teach. She really wanted to develop a golf team at Delaware State that could be competitive at any level.” Her greatest obstacle was to recruit some good talent in order to realize her dream. In 1981, there was a limited split-season schedule for the spring and fall. During the fall of 1981, she had six players at all times, while a team usually had seven to ten players.

While teaching the sport at DSU, she continued to play golf professionally. She believed that the sport had grown throughout the country and on a local level, which she believed was due to the profile set by the ladies professional tours and by Commissioner Ray Volpe. By 1974, she had earned LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Class A Member Status. Two years later, (1976), she be-came the first President of the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Northeast Section; she served from 1976 to 1978. She reported that membership in her region had grown from 31 to 50 in the last years since Volpe had become Commissioner. When the LPGA reorganized its teaching division in 1976, Carrie Russell was among the founding section presidents who helped to build the frame work for the LPGA. 

While she continued to make progress in her career, she still held out hope for golf on the local level. She continued teaching English and Physical Education at DSU and coaching women’s basketball, as well as golf, but she found that the latter was more challenging. She was the first golf coach at Delaware State, but she believed that it was more challenging because...​​

...”you don’t usually have as many people to coach. Golf was more of an in-
dividual sport. It’s one person against the course. It’s the club swinging a-
gainst the course. ...”If he or she is successful at that, then he or she usu-ally beat their opponents. That is not always the case in basketball or other team sports.”

Carrie was determined to make golf a major sport on campus and in the Dover area. She urged youngsters interested in the sport to get involved in the area junior golf programs and to work hard. She said, “Just like football, basket-ball, baseball and other sports, you have to practice constantly just like they do to improve...you don’t put out the effort, you will never be more than a mediocre player.” With her teaching and her playing experience, she hoped to mold the golf team at Delaware State into a playing force that could compete with the rest of the state and nation. In order to have an ample number of golf students, she also taught young golfers at two-day junior golf camps, which were held annually in July and August in Wyoming, Delaware.

In spite of her determination to have a golf team on the Delaware State College campus, it was not easy. Nor was it easy having a golf team on any Historically Black College or University (HBCU) campus. When Russell taught golf at DSU, she was the first golf coach at that institution. She was the men’s coach—the women did not have a team. By 1995, there was still not a women’s team, and nor was there a men’s team because it was discontinued in 1986 due to a lack of funding. In fact, not a single school in the historically black Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) had a women’s golf team. The failure of the sport to catch on with African Americans was a sore point with Carrie Russell. She wanted the sport to be returned to the Delaware State University campus, but sadly the campus officials had no plans to reinstate it. Finances did not appear to have been the rationale for it being discontinued because Russell admitted that when golf was a fixture on campus there were no scholarships and that it was difficult to develop a program in that manner.

Carrie Russell readily admitted that it was frustrating trying to get African Americans interested in the game and that it was very difficult to find African American women who played golf. She offered summer programs and comment-ed that she had to go to YMCA’s, churches, and any other places she could think of to get a group of people together and talk to them in order to get people to attend programs. She also stated that even Title IX legislation which was designed to give women equal opportunity in high school and college athletics had little influence.

Two factors that hindered her efforts were racism and discrimination and sexism. In the past, golf had been considered a White man’s sport and rarely had African Americans been allowed on the private golf courses and country clubs other than as caddies, and sometimes, not even in those capacities. Some African Americans had been employed in those establishments as cooks and custodians, but were not permitted to play golf there. Nor were there many other opportunities for African Americans to learn the sport.

In order to attract new members to the game, Carrie Russell often spoke before many groups. For example, she spoke on March 10, 1978 at the Delaware State Golf Association spring meeting at Brandwine Country Club. Her presentation included a film and a question and answer session. Not only did she teach golf at DSC, at junior camps, but she also taught it to her nephews and other interested persons, in the Berlin, Maryland area. She offered other classes at Eagle Creek in Dover, and nearby courses, such as Garrison’s Lake, and Pine Culver Shores. Each summer, she also taught golf to many youngsters in the Junior Golf Program at Dover Air Force Base Golf Courses.
​
Carrie Purnell Russell introduced golf to a host of individuals when golf was not an everyday sport for the African American community. She gave instructional clinics within the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Association (MEAC), which are conferences represented by HBCU’s. She accomplished all of those things “prior to the Tiger Woods era.”

Throughout her career, Carrie Russell was the recipient of numerous awards. One of those awards was presented to her on April 21, 2001. On that day, she was honored for her role in basketball, but not golf, by the Delaware Afro American Sports Hall of Fame at its third Banquet.

​Carrie Purnell Russell was the first Master Class A Teaching Professional, the highest honor bestowed upon an LPGA Teaching and Club Golf Professional. In short, she was the first certified African American to receive LPGA Master Life Golf Teaching Professional Member Status. She participated in many tournaments, including the Greenhill Country Club each summer and was involved in the LPGA section that sponsored the McDonald’s Classic at Wilmington’s Country Club, during the mid-1960s and beyond.

LPGA

Carrie Purnell Russell was dedicated to her first love, golf, but also to the teaching profession and helping others. She was also a faithful member of the Methodist Church until her death. On August 3, 2012, Carrie Dale Purnell Russell passed away peacefully in her sleep. Her funeral was held on August 11, 2012 at Whatcoat United Methodist Church, in Dover, Delaware and interment was at Sharon Hills Memorial Park, in Dover.

Despite all of the difficulties Carrie Purnell Russell encountered to introduce others to a sport she loved, she rose to the heights in the previously all-white dominated sport and became the first President of the Ladies Professional Golf Association Northeast Section, a feat in itself that will forever be remembered in the history of the sport, and nor will her efforts to inspire others to embrace the sport be forgotten.

​Those individuals who loved the sport of golf did not forget the contributions of Carrie Purnell Russell. In 2024, the LPGA Foundation established the Carrie Russell Champion of Change Award and presented it to its first recipient, Ashaunta Epps. On September 13, 2025, at the Sonesta Gwinnett in Duluth, Georgia, the National Black Golf Hall of Fame posthumously inducted Mrs. Carrie Russell, the first LPGA Master Professional, into its Hall of Fame, during its 39th anniversary celebration. The ceremony marked a historic celebration of legacy, leadership and champions in golf. More importantly, it honored Carrie Purnell Russell’s contributions to golf and that she had earned the highest honor for LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Membership. Robins Gibbs, Carrie Purnell Russell’s daughter, received the award in her mother’s honor at the ceremony. As such, Carrie Purnell’s efforts to inspire others to learn and appreciate the sport of golf will not be forgotten.

National Black Golf Hall of Fame
39th Anniversary Celebration Fact Sheet

Ashaunta Epps was the inaugural recipient of the Carrie Russell Champion for Change Award in 2024
LGPA