John Mills Jr., one of the best golfers in Maine history and a Division I All-American at the University of Houston, died March 29 of complications from a blood infection.
Mills, 63, who lived in Doral, Fla., battled the effects of testicular cancer for years. He was diagnosed with it in his early 20s.
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Mills, a 1967 Cheverus High graduate, won the Maine schoolboy championship and 1970 Maine Amateur, and lost in a playoff for the Maine Open to pro Bob Pacheco in 1968 at Riverside Golf Course. Mills, who grew up in Portland and learned the game at Riverside, was inducted into the Maine Golf Hall of Fame in 1999.
“John was absolutely one of the best golfers to ever come out of Maine,” said Dick Ranaghan of Portland, a good friend.
“He was a Division I All-American. There haven’t been too many, if any, Division I All-Americans from Maine. He got cancer at a young age and it was always lurking. He had been on medication for years. It took a toll on him. After he got sick, he pretty much gave up playing the game competitively. He wasn’t the same after that.”
In 1971, Mills’ senior season at Houston, he led the NCAA individual championship by three shots heading into the final round at Tucson, Ariz., after rounds of 65-69-71. Ben Crenshaw of Texas shot a final-round 65 to beat Mills, who struggled with a 75, by seven shots.
Mills was named to the Division I All-American first team that season. The others on the first team were Crenshaw, Andy North of Florida and Lanny Wadkins of Wake Forest. The second team consisted of Tom Watson of Stanford, Tom Kite of Texas and Eddie Pearce of Wake Forest.
The Cougars won NCAA titles in Mills’ sophomore and junior seasons. Some of Mills’ Houston teammates in those years included Bruce Lietzke and John Mahaffey, the 1978 PGA champion.
Mills was preparing for the PGA Tour qualifying school when he got cancer.
“John was very accurate with his driver and iron shots,” said Ranaghan.
“He had a great short game and he could putt like the devil. He always said that if all PGA Tour tournaments were played on tight courses where you had to split the middle of the fairway with your tee shot, he would have been on the Tour right out of college.”
Mills remained active in golf even though his dreams of making the PGA Tour ended. He promoted exhibitions, bringing former Houston teammates like Lietzke and Mahaffey to Maine.
He arranged for Sam Snead to play an exhibition at Riverside before the old Casco Bay Classic, a tournament Mills founded.
Mills worked for Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. as its golf consultant for the company’s Seniors Classic, which ran for three years in the 1980s at the Purpoodock Club in Cape Elizabeth, and brought players like Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Don January, Miller Barber and Rod Funseth to Maine.
After moving to Florida in the early 1990s, Mills instructed at the Jim McLean Golf School in Miami for a few years. McLean, regarded as one of America’s top instructors, also was Mills’ teammate at Houston.
In recent years, Mills, who was single, was an avid flier of model airplanes. His mother, Eileen, who lives in Naples, Fla., said his ashes will be scattered at a model plane aviation park in Weston, Fla.
Staff Writer Tom Chard can be contacted at 791-6419 or at: tchard@pressherald.com
Twitter: TomChardPPH
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