Local Legend: A Toast to "Champagne" Tony Lema

-By guest blogger Paul Brekke-Miesner-

With the conclusion of the much anticipated 2010 Masters Tournament, 38th Notes believes it’s a good time to review the life of Oakland’s own ‘Champagne’ Tony Lema. Lema was one of golf’s best and most colorful pros of the 1960’s before his tragic death in 1966. ‘Champagne’ Tony played in four Masters Tournaments, including the thrilling 1963 tournament where he dueled the legendary Jack Nicklaus down to the last hole.

The opening line of a Sports Illustrated story on Tony Lema in 1995 said it all,

“The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and “Champagne” Tony Lema from the streets of Oakland made for a most improbable pairing at the British Open in 1964.” 

There are few “rags to riches” golf  stories that can match that of “Champagne” Tony.  He learned the game of golf as a caddie and player on the links of Oakland’s Lake Chabot Municipal Golf Course. He learned the game of life on the streets of east Oakland, growing up on 92nd and 105th avenues “on the other side of the tracks,” as Tony once described his home on 92nd Ave next to the train tracks that ran along what is now Bancroft Avenue. Lema attended E. Morris Cox Elementary and St. Bernard Catholic schools as a young child.

Then Lema’s father Anthony, 37 years old and working for the WPA, died from pneumonia when Tony was three years old and his mother Clotilda worked hard to support her four kids. Tony had a few run-ins with the law and with the nuns at St. Elizabeth High School growing up. He would  sometimes cut class to go play golf. John Brodie, another Oakland youngster who later went on to an All-Pro career as a quarterback with the 49ers, caddied and golfed with Lema, said of him, “Tony was a tough kid.  You had to be growing up in Oakland.”

When most Oakland kids his age gravitated to baseball, football or basketball, Lema came to golf for economic reasons. Attempting to help his family financially, Tony started caddying at Lake Chabot and club pro Dick Fry noticed him and gave him golf shoes and instruction.

Soon Lema was balancing his life between school, golf and working at the Gerber’s Baby Food factory in east Oakland. He took to the game immediately and, with the help of local Black golf coach Lucius Bateman, won the Oakland City Amateur Golf Championship by the time he was 18 years old.  After a stint in the Marine Corps, he landed a job as an assistant pro at the San Francisco Golf Club where he learned the refinements of the game while observing and playing with the many talented players there. It was the break of a lifetime. He joined the pro tour in 1957 but after a solid rookie year in 1958, had some rough years and was in heavy debt to his sponsor.  It was  in 1962  during the Orange County Open that Lema’s luck changed  and  he  earned  his  famous  nickname.

During the Open, he blurted out to a group of sportswriters with whom he was drinking beer, “If I win this thing, guys, it’ll be champagne all around, not beers, tomorrow.” He won, his first big win on the pro tour, and the champagne flowed and from then on, he was known as “Champagne” Tony. His career skyrocketed as he finished one stroke behind the legendary Jack Nicklaus at the Masters in 1963 and played on the United States winning Ryder Cup team.  In  1964  he  won the championships of  the World  Series of  Golf, the Crosby National Pro Am, the Thunderbird Classic, Cleveland, Buick and British Opens.  In 1965 he was second only to Nicklaus in earnings and again participated on America’s winning Ryder Cup team. 

In the years between 1962 and 1966 Lema won an incredible 12 PGA tour events, finished second 11 times and third 4 times. The money and the champagne were flowing and Lema was golf’s media darling.  It all ended suddenly and tragically on July 24th, 1966.  Lema and his wife were flying from Akron, Ohio to Chicago to play in the Lincolnshire Open.  Unbelievably, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed just short of the green on the 165-yard, par 3, 7th hole of a golf course in Lansing, Illinois, killing Tony, his wife and the pilots. The funeral of Champagne Tony Lema and his wife Betty was held in St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in the Fruitvale neighborhood of east Oakland, his old stomping grounds, before an overflow crowd of mourners.

Because we tend to forget our local history, let’s all toast ‘Champagne’ Tony Lema as we watch him in interview and action below. Enjoi

Local Legends is a series written by guest contributor Paul Brekke-Miesner that highlights Oakland's many sports luminaries. These profiles are excerpts from a forthcoming book that will highlight the many Oakland natives to emerge succesful in the sporting world. This is the first installment of the series, but there will be more to come!