Told Ben Hogan: ‘We’ll play even’

LITTLE ROCK — When he played a round against golf legend Ben Hogan, Charles “Junior” Lewis refused the strokes offered by Hogan.

“He said, ‘You’re a pro, and I’m a pro, and we’ll play even,’” according to Mack Moore, a longtime golfing buddy of Lewis’.

Lewis lost the round and a $20 bet.

Charles Francis Lewis Jr. died Friday morning at St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., after a prolonged illness, said his son, Charles Lewis III. He was 94.

“Junior” Lewis took the sport his father passed down to him and passed it on to his son - making golf professionals out of three generations of Lewises.

“It was his life,” his son said.

Lewis was born in Mount Clemens, Mich., but moved to Fort Smith when his father became the golf professional at Hardscrabble Country Club.

He took an interest in golf as a youth and was crowned the state high school golf champion in 1936 while a student at St. Anne’s Academy in Fort Smith.

After working in the zinc mines in Oklahoma with a bread route on the side during World War II, Lewis returned to Little Rock and became an assistant golf professional at the Country Club of Little Rock in 1951.

“He never abandoned golf,” his son said.

During his 30 years as the head golf professional at the country club, Lewis and his wife, Delores, took junior golfers to tournaments and would pay their expenses, Moore said.

“He grew up hard,” Moore said. “He never grew up as a privileged country club person. He knew what hard work was.”

Lewis was inducted into the Arkansas State Golf Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

Golf is a Lewis family activity. Charles Lewis III, 71, was on the PGA Tour for a few years and then became a golf professional at Mission Hills Country Club in Kansas City, a position from which he has since retired.

He recalls his father teaching him the game when he was 6 or 7 years old.

“It was just a fun time for me,” he said.

Junior Lewis’ brother Paul also became a golf professional in Little Rock, and they played together often.

Even after his retirement in 1986, Lewis would go to the county club every day to eat and play a few holes, riding around in his golf cart and stopping to chat with people on the course, Moore said. He stopped only a few years ago when his health began to decline.

“He was serious about the enjoyment of golf,” Moore said.