Original season ticket pass to the Desert Inn 14th Annual Tournament of Champions, held in Las Vegas April 11-17, 1966, 6.25 x 2.75, signed on the reverse in pencil by Tony Lema, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus. In 1953, Desert Inn held its first Annual Tournament of Champions Golf Event. Other Las Vegas hotels contributed $25,000 to the event as the proceeds went to the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Cancer Research. For 13 years, this tournament was one of the premiere stops on the pro golfer’s tour. It was an event the entire city looked forward to. Lema was an American golfer (1934–1966) who came to international prominence when he beat Jack Nicklaus by five strokes in the 1964 British open. His promising career was cut short at the age of thirty-two, when the plane he was traveling in crashed on a golf course in Illinois on July 24, 1966; all four on board, including Lema and his wife Betty, were instantly killed. In very good condition, with Lema’s signature a few shades light, but legible, scattered toning and soiling, and a tear to left side, slightly affecting a single stroke of Nicklaus’s signature. Auction LOA Steve Grad/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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