Old pals of Don Papin were not about to miss the official dedication of a plaque last week near the No. 13 tee box at City Park Golf Course commemorating his monster hole-in-one on the 338-yard par-4 in 2004. The gathering soon became a celebration of the venerable inner-city facility and the remarkable makeup of the City Park Players Club back in the day.

“The word ‘diversity’? We coined that even before it came out,” said Jimmy Vigil, who helped establish the City Park Players Club in 1981.

City Park Golf Course dates to 1912 and has welcomed players from all walks of life for as long as anyone can remember. But before 1981, tournament play was segregated. Whites were members of the City Park Men’s Club, while blacks joined the East Denver Golf Club. Hispanics and players of Asian descent formed their own clubs and staged homogeneous competitions.

Things changed in 1981 with the formation of the City Park Players Club, where everyone could play in the same events.

“It became a colorblind club, and still is,” said Bob Ransome, a retired trial attorney who joined the Players Club two years after its inception. “I hate to overstate it, but the Players Club back then was without question the most diverse group of people that you could find.”

Demographics of the Players Club have changed somewhat over the years, but longtime members recall it being about equal parts black, white and Hispanic back in the day.

The range of economic stature was even more diverse.

“That’s the beauty of City Park Golf Course,” Ransome said. “Nobody gave a damn about what you did for a living or who you are or who you think you are. What mattered was if you counted every stroke and played by the rules.”

It wasn’t as if different ethnic groups never played together before the Players Club was formed. On weekends, City Park Golf Course attracted a gumbo mixture of players from all corners of the metro area. It became a mecca for gambling.

“The only color golfers saw was green — the stuff you can put in your wallet,” Ransome said. “For whatever reason, City Park attracted money games.”

Restaurant entrepreneur Willie Kellum acknowledges having won golf bets well into five figures. It was easy to find somebody, or two guys for a four-ball match, to play for $1,000 or more, Kellum said.

“Golfers from all over would come to City Park because they knew they could get a bet,” Kellum recalled. “Some people may not want to hear that. But it brought different people together.

“Golf had been pretty segregated. But then guys started to come together on their own. After people started seeing that, they got comfortable with it. Then when somebody mentioned a club for everybody, it was, ‘Let’s do it!’ “

It’s difficult to imagine anyone taking more pride in the diversity of the City Park Players Club (also called City Park Men’s Club) than Tom Woodard, who became City Park’s head golf professional and is now director of golf for Foothills Park and Recreation District.

After moving from Midland, Texas, to Denver at age 10, Woodard became an accomplished golfer at City Park. But as an African-American, he lacked national recognition having played in local tournaments conducted by the East Denver Golf Club and in regional competition sponsored by the predominantly black Central States Golf Association which stretched from Ohio to Colorado.

Having also caddied at City Park, Woodard was awarded an Evans Scholarship to the University of Colorado. He had not been recruited to CU for golf, but he decided to try out for the golf team and made it. He would go on to twice earn all-Big Eight Conference honors and was later inducted into the National Black Golf Hall of Fame and Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

Then-CU coach Les Fowler , like most college coaches, did not typically scout black tournaments.

“Les didn’t know who I was, because I had no (junior) résumé,” Woodard recalled. “He had to ask somebody already on the team who I was. Those were very different times.”

Those who play at City Park Golf Course believe it might have helped change some views.

“I can’t speak for other people’s feelings,” Ransome said, “but I would suspect that if you hung out at City Park Golf Course for any period of time, you would quickly lose any prejudice or bias you had. You’d find out that human beings are just what they are.

“I wish the whole world were like this place.”

Tom Kensler: tkensler@denverpost.com or twitter.com/tomkensler