Life is good these days for Cliff Buchholz and his wife, Mary, who blended their families and got married 21 years ago. They live in a suburb of Fort Collins, CO, and have 17 grandchildren. Fourteen of them live in Fort Collins, and of those 14, nine live within two blocks. 

When the weather is cold, they try to travel at least once a month to a warm climate. In late February 2023, Cliff was headed to Miami to see brother Butch and attend the tournament they ran in South Florida for some 20 years. 

And then in June, Cliff will be headed to London to see Wimbledon. Virtually every year he goes to either the French or Wimbledon. The trip to England is especially sweet because he gets free tickets from former St. Louisan and Trinity University tennis teammate Rod Susman and his wife, Karen, who won the Wimbledon singles title in 1962. 

“At that time, if you won Wimbledon, you got two free tickets for the rest of your life,” Cliff said. “They have front-row tickets on the opposite side of the royal box, and their seats are even better than the royal box.” 

The Susmans don’t like to travel, so the tickets have gone to Cliff and brother Butch in recent years, although Butch, at 82, has stopped traveling to Europe. 

When I called Cliff a couple of weeks before writing this piece, he seemed to be keenly interested in a TV match between Medvedev and Zverev. I kind of thought that after all these years Cliff might have cooled on tennis, but that wasn’t the case. At 79, he not only watches, he still plays, although he’s been sidelined since last May by what he called “simple” surgeries on his knee and back. He hopes to start playing again relatively soon. 

“When I was the tournament director in Miami, I was one of the few tournament directors that liked watching tennis,” he said. “Most of them were out playing golf and other things. I’ve always enjoyed playing the whole time. 

“It’s a great way to stay in shape. I owned health clubs and tennis clubs and I always felt tennis was more fun than getting on a treadmill, and probably better for you.” 

After playing at Trinity on a team that lost only one match in four years, Cliff went to law school at Washington U. and began owning tennis clubs – first the Buchholz Racquet Club in St. Charles, then clubs in Pittsburgh, Springfield, Champaign, Denver and Fort Collins. 

He sold the tennis clubs in 2000 and transitioned to health and fitness clubs. He had five before he sold out in 2018. 

The big venture for him and Butch in the early ’80s was acquiring the Miami tournament that started as the Players Championship and over the years changed its name and sponsors to the Lipton, then Ericsson, then NASDAQ-100, then Sony Ericsson and now the Miami Open. 

But Cliff, the tournament director, and Butch, the tournament chairman, weren’t around for some of those changes. They sold out in 2000, then stayed on for contract reasons until 2003 for Cliff and 2005 for Butch. 

Cliff recalls that at that time the Lipton was the only tournament outside of the majors to have men and women at the same locale. He says the Lipton also was the first or second to give equal prize money to women. 

“It was very controversial,” Cliff said. “But the fact that Lipton was our title sponsor and their customer was the housewife, and their spokesperson was Chris Evert, they insisted that we have equal prize money.” 

Now Cliff is “pretty much” retired. He has one other investment, a business that sells a mist that numbs the teeth in place of a needle. He says it cost over $120 million to get it approved. While it hasn’t done as well as he’d hoped, he’s optimistic about its future. 

On his father, legendary tennis teacher Earl Buchholz Sr.:

“Foremost for him was the public parks and the African-American community. He and Richard Hudlin were good friends. Althea Gibson came to St. Louis and trained in my dad’s program.” 

On his fond memories of the Armory:

“Larry Miller did such a wonderful job. Jimmy and Arthur and Butch and Chuck McKinley, we all grew up at the Armory. They didn’t have locker rooms. We used his pro shop to change clothes. They had a locker room downstairs, but you couldn’t always go down there. That’s where they kept their tanks and trucks and everything.” 

Jimmy Parker-Arthur Ashe-Cliff Buchholz at the Armory 

On a match between Cliff, of all-white Southwest High, and Arthur Ashe, of all-black Sumner High, at Forest Park:

“Normally in high school tennis you don’t have anybody come out to watch except a parent or relatives, but we had quite a few kids come out to watch.” Cliff won that time, but Arthur would have his days, too, such as when he beat Cliff in the final of the National Indoor at the Armory. 

On Ashe’s calm demeanor: “He was always so pleasant to be with. I was surprised that he got a heart condition because he never got excited about anything.” 

Don’t mess with the Buchholz brothers 

Imagine it’s the late ’50s and you’re a great young tennis player in St. Louis, and you’ve got your eye on the state high school singles championship. You’re Chuck McKinley of Pattonville High, or Rod Susman of Ladue High, or Jimmy Parker of Ladue High — all certainly capable of winning state. But there’s a problem and its name is Buchholz. 

From 1956 through 1960, the state title might well have been stamped “Property of the Buchholz family.” In ’56 Butch, from John Burroughs, beat McKinley of Pattonville High; in ’57 he beat Susman of Ladue High; in ’58, ’59 and ’60, Cliff, from Southwest High, beat Parker of Ladue High. All of those were finals, and all were straight sets. 

Cliff Buchholz was inducted into the St Louis Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993