Tony Lema

Tony Lema
Personal information
Full name	Anthony David Lema
Nickname	Champagne Tony
Born	February 25, 1934(1934-02-25) Oakland, California
Died	July 24, 1966(1966-07-24) (aged 32) Lansing, Illinois
Nationality	United States
Career
Turned professional	1955
Former tour(s)	PGA Tour
Professional wins	19
Number of wins by tour
PGA Tour	12
Best results in Major Championships (Wins: 1)
Masters Tournament	2nd: 1963
U.S. Open	T4: 1966
The Open Championship	Won: 1964
PGA Championship	T9: 1964

Anthony David "Tony" Lema (February 25, 1934 – July 24, 1966) was an American professional golfer, who rose to fame in the beginning of golf's modern era, but had his young life and career cut short in an aircraft accident. His most prestigious victory was the 1964 British Open.

Biography

Lema was born in Oakland, California, to parents of Portuguese ancestry. His father died when Tony was three years old, and his widowed mother struggled to raise the family of four children on welfare. He began playing golf as a boy at Lake Chabot municipal golf course and learned different aspects of the game from a variety of people. Noted African-American golf coach Lucius Bateman helped develop his swing, Oakland policeman Ralph Hall taught him course strategy, and the golf pros at Lake Chabot, Dick Fry and Bill Burch, trained him to use a square stance.

At age 17, Lema enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served in Korea. After his discharge from the military in 1955, he obtained work as an assistant to the club professional at a San Francisco golf club.

Eddie Lowery, a wealthy San Francisco businessman, who assisted talented amateur players in the area, helped to sponsor and encourage Lema. Lowery is best known as the 10-year-old caddy of champion Francis Ouimet during the 1913 U.S. Open. Lowery's sponsorship gave Lema $200 a week expense money, to be repaid, in addition to splitting his winnings: Lema received two-thirds, Lowery one-third. One additional detail was that all debts at the end of the year were to be carried forward.

By 1957, Lema had developed his skills sufficiently enough to earn his way onto the PGA Tour, winning the Imperial Valley Open in memorable fashion: Assuming he was out of contention, Lema headed to the clubhouse bar, where he had three highballs. Told that he would face Paul Harney in a sudden-death playoff, a relaxed Lema won the tournament on the second extra hole. The following year, he began developing friendships with a trio of fellow golfers: Johnny Pott, Tommy Jacobs and Jim Ferree, and during 11 tournaments in 1958, Lema finished in the top 15, winning $10,282 for the year.

The following year, Lema's winnings dropped to $5,900, followed by an even worse year in 1960, when he collected a mere $3,060. A raucous, off-the-course lifestyle was taking its toll until he began talking with television producer Danny Arnold, who helped him improve his composure and bolster his confidence.

While Lema's struggles continued in 1962, along with his debt to Lowery reaching over $11,000, his luck would finally change for good. On the eve of his victory in October 1962 at the Orange County Open Invitational in Costa Mesa, California, Lema joked he would serve champagne to the press if he won the next day. From then on he was known as Champagne Tony, and his handsome looks and vivacious personality added to the legend, such that Johnny Miller has stated that at the time of his death in 1966, Lema was second only to Arnold Palmer in fan popularity.

That win sparked an impressive performance over the next four years that saw him win 12 official PGA tour events, finish second on 11 occasions, and third four times. From 1963 through July 1966, Lema finished in the top-10 over 50% of the time and never missed a cut in a professional major, finishing in the top-10 in 8 of the 15 majors in which he played. He was a member of the 1963 and 1965 United States Ryder Cup teams, and his Ryder Cup record (9–1–1) is the best of any player who has played in two or more.

Friend and tour colleague Jack Nicklaus wrote that Lema's play also stabilized and improved greatly after he married his wife Betty, a former airline stewardess, in 1963. One additional reason for Lema's more relaxed play that year was the end of his agreement with Lowery.

In 1963, Lema finished second by one stroke to Jack Nicklaus at the Masters Tournament, and missed the playoff for the U.S. Open by two shots, bogeying the last two holes, believing he needed birdies. He won the Memphis Open Invitational later that summer.

Lema won two other tournaments that fall and was named 1963 Most Improved Player by Golf Digest. That winter, he wrote, with Gwylim S. Brown, "Golfers' Gold", an autobiographical account of his eight-year apprenticeship in the competitive cauldron of the PGA Tour.

In 1964, Lema won the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links, and then three tournaments in four weeks: the Thunderbird Classic at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, the Buick Open Invitational at Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and the Cleveland Open at Highland Park Golf Course in Cleveland, Ohio (in a playoff with Arnold Palmer).

Then, two weeks later, he captured one of the major championships by taking that year's British Open at St Andrews, Scotland, by five shots over Jack Nicklaus. This was an astonishing surprise, since Lema was not only making his first appearance in the championship, but had only nine holes of practice before starting. However, Lema hired Arnold Palmer's regular British caddy, Tip Anderson, since Palmer was not competing that year; Anderson, a descendant of a past Open champion, Jamie Anderson, had grown up on the course and likely knew more about it than anyone else.

In the matchup of the four major champions of 1964 in the World Series of Golf, Lema won $50,000 (then the largest payoff in golf) at Firestone Country Club over Arnold Palmer (Masters), Ken Venturi (U.S. Open), and Bobby Nichols (PGA Championship).

In 1965, Lema won the Buick Open for the second consecutive year, and the Carling World Open, finishing second in prize money to Jack Nicklaus. In fall 1965, Lema and Nicklaus formed the U.S. team to the World Cup of Golf. Lema's last victory came in May 1966, in his wife's hometown at the Oklahoma City Open. A few weeks later he came back from an opening round 78, to almost capture a third consecutive Buick Open, just losing out to his close friend, Phil Rodgers.

In 1966, at age 32, he was flying from the PGA Championship at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, with his wife, Betty, to an exhibition tournament, the Little Buick Open in Lincolnshire, Illinois, south of Chicago, when their chartered twin-engine Beechcraft Bonanza ran out of fuel and crashed in a water hazard short of the seventh green of Lansing Country Club in Lansing, Illinois, very close to their destination. During the fatal plunge, the pilot swerved left to avoid a group of people standing near the clubhouse. In addition to the Lemas, two other people, Dr. George Bard and Doris Mullen, were also killed. Bard and Mullen's husband, Wylie, were owners of the ill-fated plane.

Lema and his wife were buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Hayward, California, after funeral services at St. Elizabeth's Church in his hometown of Oakland, California.

In 1983, a San Leandro public golf course was named in his honor, the Tony Lema Golf Course, in his which is now part of the Monarch Bay Golf complex.

PGA Tour wins (12)

No.	Date	Tournament	Winning score	Margin of victory	Runner(s)-up
1	Sep 30, 1962	Sahara Invitational	-14 (69–67–66–68=270)	3 strokes	Don January
2	Oct 28, 1962	Orange County Open Invitational	-17 (68–66–64–69=267)	Playoff	Bob Rosburg
3	Nov 18, 1962	Mobile Sertoma Open Invitational	-15 (67–68–68–70=273)	7 strokes	Doug Sanders
4	May 27, 1963	Memphis Open Invitational	-10 (67–67–68–68=270)	Playoff	Tommy Aaron
5	Jan, 19 1964	Bing Crosby National Pro-Am	-4 (70–68–70–76=284)	3 strokes	Gay Brewer, Bo Wininger
6	Jun 7, 1964	Thunderbird Classic	-12 (68–67–70–71=276)	1 stroke	Mike Souchak
7	Jun 14, 1964	Buick Open Invitational	-11 (69–66–72–70=277)	1 stroke	Dow Finsterwald
8	Jun 28, 1964	Cleveland Open	-14 (65–70–70–65=270)	Playoff	Arnold Palmer
9	Jul 10, 1964	British Open	-9 (73–68–68–70=279)	5 strokes	Jack Nicklaus
10	Jun 6, 1965	Buick Open Invitational	-8 (71–70–69–70=280)	2 strokes	Johnny Pott
11	Aug 23, 1965	Carling World Open	-5 (71–71–67–70=279)	2 strokes	Arnold Palmer
12	May 29, 1966	Oklahoma City Open Invitational	-17 (69–68–69–65=271)	6 strokes	Tom Weiskopf

Other wins (7)

this list is probably incomplete

• 1957 Imperial Valley Open
• 1958 Idaho Open
• 1961 Hesperia Invitational Open, Mexican Open
• 1962 Mexican Open, Northern California Open
• 1964 World Series of Golf

Major championships

Wins (1)

Year	Championship	54 holes	Winning score	Margin	Runner-up
1964	British Open	7 shot lead	−9 (73–68–68–70=279)	5 strokes	Jack Nicklaus

Results timeline

Tournament	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966
The Masters	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	2	T9	T21	T22
U.S. Open	50	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	CUT	T5	20	T8	T4
The Open Championship	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	1	T5	T30
PGA Championship	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	WD	T13	T9	T61	T34

DNP = did not play
WD = withdrew
CUT = missed the half way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10.

See also

• Golfers with most PGA Tour wins

External links

• "Tony Lema". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11780. Retrieved February 5, 2008. 
• Tony Lema Golf Course Monarch Bay