Wisconsin golf legend Tommy Veech – 'the best I've ever seen' – dies at age 88

Mark Bemowski, a six-time Wisconsin State Amateur champion, has played with and against just about every good golfer the state has produced over the last five decades, from Bobby Brue to Andy North to Steve Stricker.

From the standpoint of pure talent, there’s one he places above all the others.

“Tommy Veech was beyond belief good,” said Bemowski, 71. “I’ve seen a lot of guys come through, and a lot of fine players. He was the best I’ve ever seen.”

Wisconsin lost one of its golfing giants – a man Billy Casper once said was the best player he’d ever seen – when Veech died Monday, just hours after being admitted to hospice care near his winter home in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 88.

Veech won the first of his four State Open titles as an 18-year-old amateur. He beat Arnold Palmer in the quarterfinals of the Intercollegiate National Championship (now the NCAA Championship). He shot a 59 at North Hills Country Club, with a persimmon driver and a balata golf ball.

He did things with a golf club that left others speechless.

“He literally had the best hands the golf world has ever seen,” said Randy Warobick, whose father, the late professional Lou Warobick, was Veech’s best friend. “His control of the golf club was phenomenal.”

Veech spent the 1959 season on the PGA Tour, but two things prevented him from achieving greatness as a touring professional. He didn’t like the lifestyle and he weighed in excess of 300 pounds. He had a hard time walking 72 holes on bad knees, and the insides of his thighs would chafe raw.

“There were many times his legs were bloody after a round of golf,” Warobick said.

Still, he would play in the U.S. Open five times, the Greater Milwaukee Open 10 times and the Western Open seven times. He played in the 1951 Masters while a junior at Notre Dame, after reaching the quarterfinals of the 1950 U.S. Amateur.

Though he never played on the PGA Tour fulltime after 1959, Veech made occasional starts in the 1960s. In 1967, he matched Jack Nicklaus over the first three rounds of the Western Open before closing with a 74 to finish fifth, his career best.

In 1964, Veech and Lou Warobick played in the PGA Championship and a young Randy Warobick, who would go on to play at the University of Texas with Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite, was spellbound as Casper and Tony Lema talked about Veech over lunch.

Casper had played the No. 2 spot in his one year at Notre Dame. Veech was No. 1 and team captain.

“Billy said, ‘You know, Lou, if they allowed carts, we’d all be playing for second place,’” Randy said. “The field included (Ben) Hogan, Nicklaus and Palmer in their primes and (Sam) Snead. That’s how much Billy Casper thought of Veech.”

Bemowski caddied for Veech at North Hills, where Veech was a member and Bemowski had a junior membership. Bemowski would go on to win dozens of state tournaments and the U.S. Senior Amateur. He said he owed much of his success to Veech.

“Oh, a lot,” he said. “A huge amount. I learned so much from him. I was very fortunate. I can’t say enough about him.”

Once, when Bemowski was a teen, he played a round with Veech at North Hills. They came to the 17th hole, a long par-3 with the pin tucked in the back-right corner of the green. Bemowski hit first and his ball wound up safely on the left side of the green, some 35 feet from the hole. A good shot.

“I was strutting a little bit and Tommy said, ‘Looks like I’ll have to come up with something,’” Bemowski said. “He pulled out his driver and hit it down the left side. I thought it was going to wind up in the rough. But it faded onto the green and rolled up 2 feet from the hole. Best shot I’ve ever seen.”

Another time, when Bemowski was caddying for Veech in an “action” match at North Hills, Veech hit his approach into a greenside bunker. He eyed the shot and then told a surprised Bemowski to pull the pin.

“The ball landed like a butterfly on the green and rolled into the middle of the hole, as if he’d putted it,” Bemowski said. “It was a money match but the guys he was playing with just had to laugh. That was Tommy.  He was special. There was just nobody like him.”

Veech was the vice president of sales and marketing for Moen Manufacturing in Chicago before retiring to Geneva National Golf Club in Lake Geneva with his wife of 59 years, Ellie.

He is survived by Ellie and children Patrick (Christine), Scott, Stuart (Mascha) and Michael (Moira). A funeral mass will be held Thursday at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Vero Beach. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.