TRIBUTE was paid in the Senate this week to Llewellyn (Peter) Tucker, the pioneering sportsman and first black golfer to represent Bermuda, who died a month ago at the age of 77.

Mr. Tucker played for the island in the World Amateur Team Championships in October 1968 in Australia and, in doing so, led the transition away from segregated golf.

He was also a talented footballer and boxer, as well as a saxophonist and singer with the Aldono Quintet, and was a recipient of the Queen's Certificate and Badge of Honour in 2002. Senator Kim Swan, Mr. Tucker's cousin and a former professional golfer on the European Tour, said the deeds of Mr. Tucker and his black golfing contemporaries had paved the way for him.

"When Peter was playing, Ocean View was the only course that black people were allowed to play on," Sen. Swan said.

"Then champions of Ocean View were allowed to play in amateur tournaments and in the Bermuda Four Ball Championships, which Peter won with Eardley Jones in May 1968."

Others, like Mr. Jones, Keith Pearman, Noel VanPutten, Bill Pitt, Sr. and Frankie Rabain, should share the credit with Mr. Tucker for bring down the racial barriers, Sen. Swan said.

What was important to remember, said Sen. Swan, was not just what Mr. Tucker did, but the way he did it.

"Peter and his wife Claudette were the epitome of elegance and grace," Sen. Swan said.

"Here were people who were denied an opportunity for so long and that must have brought great pain. With a stroke of a pen, that opportunity suddenly came.

"Then he had the courage to walk forward in that transitional time, and he did it without acrimony or bitterness. He showed people that those who had been denied were more than worthy. He showed how wrong they had been.

"He was a bus driver and later an insurance representative with British American, as well as working as a musician in the evenings. Yet he still managed to hone his golf skills."

Mr. Tucker was also a football pioneer and played in an historic match for Southampton Rangers against BAA on the amalgamation of the formerly segregated football leagues.

The Bermuda Golf Association then selected Mr. Tucker to play in the the history-making 1968 island team, captained by George Wardman and also including Brendan (Bees) Ingham and Louis Moniz.

And Sen. Swan was a team-mate of Mr. Tucker the next time he played in the World Amateur Team Championships in Fiji in 1978.

"I would not have been able to do what I did in golf, without the contribution of people like Peter, who did not have the same opportunities that I did," Sen. Swan said.