Tony Lema – A Shooting Star 

They say what’s important is not the years in your life but the life in your years. Champagne Tony Lema, Marco Island Country Club’s first golf professional, definitely lived the life in his years. 

Lema, a handsome, charismatic touring pro, was a shooting star in the golf world when he signed on with the Marco Island Country Club on July 24, 1965. Like Lema, the Deltona Corporation, developers of modern Marco Island, was flying high in the mid-60s. Everything they touched seemed to turn to gold. And Marco Island was the crown jewel of their 10 master planned communities across Florida. Lema was the perfect fit for their fledgling country club on Marco Island.

Known as one of the most carefree and colorful players on the tour, Lema finished two strokes behind Jack Nicklaus at the 1963 Masters. He later beat Nicklaus by five strokes to win his first major, the 1964 Open Championship at the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland. It would be fair to say that Lema was the talk of the PGA Tour in his short-lived prime.

Lema had been the professional at the Marco Island Country Club for exactly one year on July 24, 1966, when he and his wife, Betty, lost their lives in an airplane crash following the PGA tournament at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. He was just 32 years old.

At one time, Lema’s bronze bust sat atop a stone pillar on the golf course at the Marco Island Country Club. Today, his bust rests on a modest wooden base on a counter in the men’s locker room. Its inscription plate, a little worse for wear, tells a little of his history. “At age 30, he won the 1964 Open Championship at St Andrews,” the plaque reads. "He had 12 PGA tour wins in all. Tony Lema was named the first resident professional of the Marco Island Country Club in 1965, and later in 1966, he played in the inaugural golf round at the new course….The Tony Lema Tournament was held at the Club from 1967 to 1980, drawing celebrity participants from the worlds of sports and entertainment.” 

One can’t help but wonder if anyone ever mentions Lema anymore at the country club.

Marco Island's Fran Huxley, 76, and her brother Marc Ackerman, 78, of Bonita Springs, had a very unique relationship with Lema, who stayed with them at their parents' home in Milwaukee between tournaments for much of his career. He even shared Ackerman’s childhood bedroom.

Ackerman, a forensic psychologist, holds vivid memories of his life with Lema, who was taking the golf world by storm at the same time they were bunking up together in Ackerman’s childhood bedroom.

Ackerman’s father, Don, was a doctor and an avid golfer. He met Lema when he was playing in his first professional golf tournament, the Miller Open, in Milwaukee.

“Tony became ill and went to see my father,” Ackerman said. “My father didn’t charge him because he was an avid golfer. So Tony gave him a couple of tickets to the Miller Open."  

Dr. Ackerman also offered to let Lema stay with his family while he was in town. 

“He was explaining to my father that he didn't know what he was going to do,” Ackerman said, "because between tournaments, he couldn't afford to go back and forth to his home in California. My father said, ‘Why don't you come and stay at our house? There's an extra bed in my son's bedroom.’”

So Lema, the hottest shot on the pro tour, was sleeping in a twin bed in Marc Ackerman’s childhood bedroom. Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction.

Ackerman’s little sister Fran started keeping a scrapbook on their famous houseguest. She kept it up until Lema’s infamous plane crash.

"It was fun because you know he stayed at the house,” Huxley said. ‘He was young and he died very young. He was probably in his early 20s at the time. I would put the scores in every week and maybe articles from him, about him. And then there was the Sports Illustrated (Lema graced the cover of Sports Illustrated twice). So, it was fun and for some reason, I kept it. But then again, that's me. I don't throw things out. I was probably around eight to 10 years old. It was interesting because I played golf, but not a whole lot at that age.”

Huxley recently donated the scrapbook to the Marco Island Historical Society, where it resides in their archives with many other Tony Lema-related items. 

Ackerman recalls playing golf with his father and Lema at their home course.

"I got to play golf with him probably a dozen times over the years,” Ackerman said. “And it was fun. There were actually people who would follow us around the golf course because they wanted to see Tony play. Everybody wanted to play with him and there were only two or three guys who did because Tony wasn't there to work. He was there to relax. I do know that there were a couple of times that he was swarmed at the club and he wasn't happy. He said something to my father, and my father was able to work it out that people kind of backed off. Everybody wanted to know Tony Lema, what can I say?”

Lema found a job for Fran on those golf outings.

"I was probably not good enough to keep up with them,” Huxley said. "I came along and he let me read the greens for him. He and I would get down, and we would read the greens together. It's really what I remember.”

The handsome Lema knew how to treat women. Ackerman and Huxley recall his kindnesses.

"My birthday is in June,” Huxley said, "and he would send me flowers. It was really nice. And, you know, I was young. I was like 10 or 11. He was just a really nice friend.”

“He was really part of the family,” Ackerman said. “He treated my mother like a princess.”

While Lema was staying with the Ackermans, his popularity was skyrocketing along with his game, until he became a full-blown celebrity. The Ackermans just looked at him as part of the family.

“Every time he came to Milwaukee,” Ackerman said, "he would come and stay at our house. Frankly, he felt like a member of the family. We would drive down to Chicago when he was playing in tournaments in Chicago. Tony was a devout Catholic. There was a Catholic church within two blocks of our house. It was my responsibility to drive him to Saint Eugene's so he could go to confession. He was a wonderful person. He was fun. He had a sense of humor. He was easy to get along with. You know, I was a kid, but I wasn't a whole lot younger than he was. We used to play ping pong in the basement. My father challenged him to a match, and Tony was all set to whip him. What he didn't know is that in his youth, my father was the state ping pong champion. So, he wiped the floor with Tony. And Tony was looking at these serves, and he just didn't know how to hit them back. It was fun. And when he and I played, he was a little better than I was. I might have won two out of ten games.”

While many young American girls were undoubtedly swooning over the handsome Lema, Huxley just saw him as her family's friend Tony.

"He was good-looking and that,” Huxley said. "But to me, he was a friend who stayed at the house because that's just what he was. He would use our house as a base in the Midwest. He was just a really, really nice, down-to-earth person. He didn't come from a whole lot. I think he was very appreciative of what he earned. Not money-wise, but the fact that he could play golf well. I believe he started out as a caddie out in California.”

Ackerman said that women certainly swooned over Lema. His nickname of Champagne Tony was fitting.

“He was tall and slender,” Ackerman said, “he was handsome. Oh, yeah. The ladies were all over him. And he didn't mind that at all. I would guess, although I never saw it and he never talked about it a lot, I would guess that he was a player before he settled down. But you know, when he settled down, he was very settled down. He was concerned enough that if my father was sick or something and he heard about it, he would be calling several times to see if he was okay. That's a good person.”

Mike Mollis, the head pro at the Marco Island Country Club in the 1970s and eventually became GM, remembers Lema.

"I think he was a good-looking man,” Mollis said. "And, you know, all the girls, all the not-married girls would follow him. And probably half the married ones.”

So how did the Champagne Tony moniker come about?

“He was leading a tournament after the third round,” Ackerman said, “and one of the press people asked him, ‘Do you think you can win the tournament?' which would be his first win. And he said, 'I'll tell you what, if I win the tournament tomorrow, it's champagne for everybody.' And that started the Champagne Tony stream of his career. As the years went by, he was known as Champagne Tony, and the Moet champagne company would send a case of champagne to the club that he was playing a tournament at next. So, it would be waiting there for him if he won the tournament. I think he won 12 PGA Tour tournaments and 22 overall. He won his first tournament and came to our house after the win. He was a little late, and he basically explained that there was some partying going on after his first win. Knowing Tony, it was probably a pretty good party. The next day he asked me to drive him to Saint Eugene's church for confession. He was in there for 45 minutes. I thought to myself, 'that must have been one hell of a party.’"

When Ackerman turned 18, Lema surprised him with a birthday gift he’ll never forget.

“What did he do for my 18th birthday?” Ackerman said. “He gave me two tickets to the Masters. I took a friend. We had to fly down there. He told me where to meet him. We flew down before the tournament started. He took me into the pro shop with my friend and got two passes for us, and we spent the four days at the Masters. A lot of the time was spent following him around. But a lot of the time he was also doing other things. He was very serious. We didn't get in his way. Before and after, we would go out to the driving range when he was warming up and he'd come over and chat with us a little bit. He scored an eagle on one hole, and he told his caddie to toss the ball to me. It was a close personal relationship.”

Lema gained much notoriety during that 1963 Masters tournament when he finished in second place, just two strokes behind the legendary Jack Nicklaus.

“He was a real big deal on the golf tour,” Ackerman said, "there was no doubt about it. The Masters was a good example of that because there were heavy crowds lining the fairways to watch him.”

Both Ackerman and Huxley will never forget June 24, 1966.

“He was supposed to be the emcee at our wedding,” Ackerman said, “and he got killed in the plane crash before the wedding. I can remember I was driving and I was listening to the radio. I was driving over to my then-girlfriend, now-wife's house. I almost drove off the road because I pulled on the steering wheel without realizing it. I remember as soon as I got in the house, I called my father to tell him what I had heard, and he was destroyed.”

"We heard it on the news,” Huxley said. "We were watching TV. I remember sitting there with my parents and going like, really? He was a good friend and he was so young. The irony of the whole thing, I think, is the fact that his wife was an airline flight attendant at the time. And they died on a golf course in a plane crash."

Ackerman finds Lema in his thoughts to this day.

"Tony was warm, funny, religious, caring, open-hearted,” Ackerman said. "I think of him a lot. You know, he wasn't just a golfer.”

Huxley feels Lema hasn’t been properly acknowledged by the golf establishment.

 “One thing that bothers my brother and maybe me,” Huxley said, “is that they will not consider him for the Golf Hall of Fame because he did not play enough rounds of golf.”

Maybe the World Golf Hall of Fame needs to take another look at Champagne Tony’s remarkable career. Imagine the champagne celebration they could throw at his induction.