The course held a number of notable tournaments, with major events such as the 1984 PGA Championship won by Lee Trevino passing without incident.
In the months before the 1990 PGA Championship which was to be played in August at the club, Thompson was approached by a reporter from the Birmingham Post-Herald who asked about the club's admission policies, with Thompson noting the inclusion of Jews and women as members, saying that "we don't discriminate in every other area except blacks".
[4] On July 31, in an agreement reached between the club, the PGA and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Shoal Creek announced that it would begin accepting blacks as members.
[3] Sports Illustrated called Thompson "Alabama's second-most-effective catalyst for change in race relations" after Rosa Parks, noting that the effect of his remarks led to club's admission of Louis J. Willie, president of the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company as an honorary member, meaning that he would not have to pay the club's standard $35,000 initiation fee and paved the way for the sport's governing bodies to end play at clubs that practiced discrimination.
[7] His remarks led to greater introspection by the golf world regarding the membership policies at the clubs that serve as tournament hosts, with an official at the USGA estimating that 75% of private clubs in the United States in 1990 had membership policies that exclude minorities and women.
[8] As part of an effort that "helps change the climate" executive director David B. Fay of the United States Golf Association, the organization that sets rules for the sport and operates the U.S. Open, the second of the four major championships, announced new regulations in November under which the USGA would not hold tournaments at private clubs that discriminate against women or minorities.