In 1964 Tony Lema won The Open Championship at St. Andrews and then picked up one of the largest checks available to professional golfers when he won the World Series of Golf. The World Series of Golf pitted the winners of the Masters, The U.S. Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship in a two-round event with the winner in 1964 getting a $50,000 check. The winnings were unofficial and did not count towards the money list, but it still was the highest payout available at the time.
In December, Lema teamed up with Bobby Nichols to play in the best ball matches for the CBS Golf Classic. The CBS Golf Classic paid out $50,000 to the winning team. Lema and Nichols made it into the final 36-hole match against Bruce Devlin and Bob Charles.
The CBS Golf Classic was directed by Frank Chirkinian. He used technologies that had not been employed before including players wearing microphones and a boom to get camera shots from an elevated position. La Quinta Country Club was the course played for the matches.
A warehouse fire destroyed all archival footage of the CBS Golf Classic films. The only possible surviving film footage would be the canisters of film that Frank Chirkinian gave to the players. Tour Backspin got our hands on the final match of 1964 and are presenting it here (60 second commercials and all) as a public service to those golf fans who have been deprived of golf action due to the COVID-19 shutdown of the PGA TOUR.
Canisters of the 1964 Final Match in the CBS Golf Classic
We “converted” the final 36 hole match to digital in a pretty rudimentary way by projecting the 16mm film and recording the images and sound digitally. Included at no extra charge is the clickety-click of the film as it is fed through the projector. Working with old 16 mm film is a challenge as it is quite fragile and brittle. Somehow the reels of film do not include the second 9 holes of day one, or the last 8 holes of the second day. You’ll be able to figure most everything out and rest assured that the last scoring update you see is the same as the final. Enjoy some golf and if you avoid the Google machine, you probably won’t know the outcome.
Do you recognize any of the La Quinta Country Club shots? Don’t miss the Titleist commercial during the second 18 holes of the match. Also, Tony Lema’s shoes on the second day are so cool. Let us know what you think of the show!
Larry Baush is the author of Uncorked, The Life and Times of Champagne Tony Lema available at 9acespublishing.com or on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle edition. Larry carries a single digit handicap at Rainier Golf and Country Club in Seattle, Washington. He is the editor of tourbackspin.com. You can contact larry at larry@9acespublishing.com.
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