Golf pro George Archer loses battle with lymphoma
Gilroy – George Archer, the 1969 Masters champion and a 25-year Gilroy resident, died Sunday with his family at his side in Incline Village, Nev., after a long battle with Burkitts Lymphoma. He was 65.
Archer won 12 Professional Golf Association tour events after he joined the tour in 1964 and won 19 Champions Tour events. The 6-foot-5 Archer, born in San Francisco, became known as one of the best putters in PGA history.
He is best known for his win at the Augusta National in 1969, when the 29-year-old finished with a 7 under 281 total. He became known as the “Gilroy Cowboy” on the golf circuit because he lived at Lucky Hereford Ranch – once located off Day Road in Gilroy – where he helped out with odd ranch jobs when he wasn’t on tour.
“He put Gilroy on the map, before all this other stuff, the Garlic Festival and the outlets,” said Don DeLorenzo, owner of the Gilroy Golf Course and a friend of Archer’s. “People knew Gilroy first by George Archer.”
DeLorenzo met Archer while working at the Gilroy Golf Course.
“When George was in his heyday, I was growing up,” DeLorenzo said. “We got to play a considerable amount of golf together.”
The professional golfer, known for his dry wit, took young golfers under his wings when he practiced on the golf courses of Gilroy. Steve Janisch first met Archer in 1979 when he was working as a groundskeeper at the Gilroy Golf Course.
“I look at him as my teacher in a lot of ways,” said Janisch, who manages Ranch Golf Course in San Jose and plays on the PGA tour. “We spent a lot of time practicing together and played a lot of rounds of golf together.”
Janisch served as Archer’s caddie for 5 years.
“He was very easy going,” Janisch recalled. “There weren’t too many times that I ever saw George upset.”
Many recalled his witty sense of humor, including his wife, Donna, who said he always had an enthusiasm for life.
Archer met Donna in 1960 when he was playing in a golf tournament in Sacramento. She was 17 and he was nearly 21. The couple married a year later and moved to Gilroy in 1963.
Throughout Archer’s professional career his wife served as his manager.
“Well, we sort of coordinated it [together],” she said. “It wasn’t really a managerial thing. I did the finances and that kind of thing.”
While their two daughters, Elizabeth and Lynne, were young, the family traveled with Archer when he toured.
“The nature of the golf tour is different tournaments every week for most of the year,” Donna said. “Once the kids were in school, we traveled more in the summer.”
Archer spent time with his daughters when he was not on tour and often let them come along to his golf tournaments. His daughter Elizabeth became the first female caddie in the history of the Masters – played annually at Augusta National in Georgia, where women are still not allowed to join – when she carried her father’s bag during the 1983 tournament.
He and his wife moved to Lake Tahoe in 1998, when he began touring with the Senior PGA. His wife traveled with him extensively, since their children were on their own.
Archer continued to play professional golf until he was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2004.
“My initial reaction was, ‘OK, what are going to do now to resolve the problem?'” said Donna, who stayed hopeful to the end.
He underwent chemotherapy in Reno and at Palm Rancho Mirage before transferring to the University of California, San Francisco. On July 28, the family discovered that Archer’s tumors had returned and he would not be eligible for a stem cell transplant program.
“He was very positive and during his illness – which is really the test of a person’s metal – he was very courageous,” Donna said. “He never complained and he never felt sorry for himself.”
After his diagnosis, Archer asked his wife to take golf lessons from him. She hadn’t played since she was a child.
“The last round [of golf] he played was about a month ago at Lohanton Golf Course, near Truckee,” Donna said. “We only played two or three rounds of 18 holes together.”
Donna said she felt her husband knew being able to play golf when he passed away would be a way for her to feel connected to him. She acknowledged that their faith in God helped them through the last few months of Archer’s life.
“He was a man of great faith and I don’t think one knows that until one is actually there,” Donna said. “He probably even surprised himself.”
Archer is survived by his wife Donna, his daughters Elizabeth Klein and Lynne de Chambrier, and seven grandchildren.
A public memorial service is planned for Oct. 25.
