Sacramento BEE 21June98
Longtime Sacramento golf pro Tom LoPresti, whose name became synonymous with the sport because of his tireless efforts to expand its popularity and devellop young players, died Saturday in his Sacramento home after a long illness. He was 89, survivors include his wife Ruth, daughter, Victoria LoPresti and sisters Frances Whitney and Grace Goodrich. A funeral mass will be said at 10:30 am Wednesday at St. Philomene's Church. He was unique, a tought businessman on one hand but with a compassion for people looking for opportunities. said ken Morton, who succeeded LoPresti as head golf pro at Haggin Oaks Golf Course in 1994. He took care of a lot of people in need because he came up the hard way himself. Actually LoPresti, who died a month short of his 90th birthday, turned over the reins of Haggin Oaks to Morton several years earlier yet remained a figurehead at the course he turned into a huge success since becoming its original head pro in 1932. Many of LoPresti's Accomplishments are contained in a wall of photos in Haggin's pro shop, a tribute including pictures of LoPresti with Barbara Romack and Bob Lunn, two prominent golf pros whose careers he nurtured, pictures with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Arnold Plamer and other celebrities from the entertainment and sports world. Morton said his old mentor was a recruiter of the first order, someone who, through his prominence in the sport both locally and nationally, could reach out and land big names for charity events and various functions related to golf. Indeed, in 1940, barely eight years after Haggin Oaks was renamed from it's original moniker of Sacramento Municipal Golf Course, Babe Ruth was one of the celebrities present for a Red Cross fund raiser. The spotlight aside, LoPresti's first love of golf was as a teacher, his daughter recalled. Two weeks ago he was giving me golf lessons on his front room, she said, I was practicing a golf swing when he stopped me and said. Here let me take a look at that grip. He then got up and demonstrated the right way to do it with his cane. One of their final rounds of golf together was three years ago at Pebble Beach. It was one of those perfect days you hope for at Pebble, she said. No one was in front of us. Really, I was the one playing, while he rode along with the golf cart. But on one of the short holes, he asked me to give him a 7-iron and he was still able to hit it 10 feet from the cup. Born Anthony J. LoPrseti in San Francisco on July 24, 1908, Tony quickly became know as Tommy as he worked his way up the golf ladder, from a caddy master at Del Paso Country Club in 1927, then as an assistant teaching pro under Frank Minch Sr. at del Paso, and his appointment as head pro at Haggin five years later. As a youth, he quit school at age 15, headed for the Monterey area to caddie and moonlighted as a boxer to make ends meet. As a feisty 112-pounder, he won two of three fights. In later years, Max Baer, the former heavyweight champion, became a close friend. LoPresti also was a partner in a group of Sacramentans who backed the career of welterweight contender Pete Ranzany. Club Pro of the Year In industry and
