Since 1851, many remarkable black men and women did not receive obituaries in The New York Times. This month, with Overlooked, we’re adding their stories to our archives.

As an African-American youngster — as young as 7 years old, some say — Joseph Bartholomew caddied in the afternoons at the private, whites-only Audubon Park Club golf course in New Orleans, earning $3 a day. There he learned the game by watching the men whose bags he bore on his shoulders.

Bartholomew prided himself on his caddying skills, particularly in finding errant shots.

“It distracts a golf player to lose his ball,” he was quoted as saying in the reference book “African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary” (1994). “I never lost one golf ball a year.”

Audubon’s club professional, Freddie McLeod, who would go on to win the 1908 United States Open, taught Joseph how to repair clubs and eventually offered him a job.