John Hamer, a Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductee who won 10 CGA championships including two overall state amateur titles, passed away Wednesday night in Arizona. He was 74.
Hamer, a Mississippi native and Lakewood High School alum who played golf for the University of Colorado from 1962 to ’64, was one of Colorado’s top amateur players in the 1960s and early ’70s — an era which also featured such luminaries as Hale Irwin, Les Fowler, Larry McAtee and Jim English.
Hamer, a longtime member at Boulder Country Club, won the CGA Amateur in both 1969 and ’70 and he remains one of just four players since 1960 to have captured that title in back-to-back years, joining Irwin, Bob Byman and Kane Webber.
“It’s a sad day for BCC and the Colorado golf community,” Boulder Country Club director of golf Kevin Bolles said in an email.
“I just remember how great a competitor he was,” added longtime friend and fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Gary Potter, with whom Hamer won three CGA senior team championships.
Indeed, Hamer at one time had aspirations of becoming a PGA Tour player. And he certainly had some game. At the 1963 CGA Amateur (then known as the CGA Stroke Play), Hamer posted a very respectable score of 6 under par for 72 holes. The only problem was, there was one player better than him in the field — a guy named Irwin, who was 15 strokes in the distance.”¨ “I remember thinking there was probably a few other guys out there like Hale, so that ended those thoughts (of turning pro),” Hamer later told the (Boulder) Daily Camera. “If I had known how good Hale was, though, I might have tried it.” Irwin, of course, went on to win three U.S. Opens.
But Hamer, who worked as an investment advisor in Boulder, more than held his own in the Colorado amateur ranks. Besides winning the ’69 and ’70 CGA Amateur, he prevailed in the 1992 and ’96 CGA Senior Amateur and qualified for the 1993 U.S. Senior Open that Cherry Hills Country Club hosted. In addition, Hamer finished third in the Colorado Open in 1969, the year he was named state amateur of the year.
And at Boulder Country Club, competing against players such as Fowler and 1962 CGA Match Play champion Ray Pierson, Hamer won 15 BCC club championships.
Hamer was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2002.
“His record of championships won speaks for itself and his conduct on the course speaks to his character as a gentleman,” fellow Hall of Famer Gary Longfellow once noted.
No services are planned for Hamer, who lived with wife Gayle in Surprise, Ariz., in recent years. The Hamers’ son Ty is the general manager and head golf professional at Quail Dunes Golf Course at Fort Morgan. Also surviving John is daughter Shannon.
