August Frederick Kammer is the only golfer in the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame who ever won a medal in the Olympic Games.
He did it as a hockey player, fresh out of Princeton University (class of 1934), where he starred as a right winger and was also a member of the golf team. Kammer and Team U.S.A. won a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics in Germany, and then Kammer started making his name in golf.
A long-time Country Club of Detroit member and manufacturing executive with Essex Wire Co., which was founded by his grandfather, Kammer was named to the 1947 Walker Cup team for the U.S. That team topped Great Britain on the Old Course at St. Andrews as Kammer won a point in foursomes.
On U.S. soil he qualified for nine U.S. Amateur Championships and reached the semifinals in 1946. At the state level he won the Golf Association of Michigan Championships of 1945 and ’46. He was also the member on a team that won the 1961 Seminole Golf Club Member-Pro in Juno Beach, Fla. His professional partner in the prominent member-guest tournament was golf legend Arnold Palmer.
A native of New Jersey, Kammer died in Hobe Sound Fla., in 1996. He was 83.
Year inducted: 1987
| Last Name | Kammer |