BY PETE KOWALSKI
For brothers Duffy and George Solich, caddying at The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs in the 1970s offered just what they are hoping to give back: opportunity.
Duffy, whose given name is Geoff and is the older by two years, wrangled George into the Broadmoor’s caddie yard. They are the youngest of five sons in the Solich family.
“We had no idea what was in store for us,” George said. “I give Duffy all the credit as the older brother dragging me to the caddie yard. I didn’t really want to go. It turns out it was a fabulous job.”
Through their work at The Broadmoor – including duties on the range, course maintenance crew and in the pro shop – they were introduced to the Chick Evans Scholarship, which provides full academic scholarships to caddies at 24 participating universities in the United States and is administered by the Western Golf Association. Both earned Evans Scholarships to the University of Colorado in Boulder and flourished in their careers in the oil and gas business. George is the chairman and CEO of FourPoint Energy, and Duffy is the president of Ponderosa Energy.
“Golf got put in our blood at that point,” George said of their Broadmoor caddie experience. “We both fell in love with the game, and we fell in love with the Evans Scholarship and what it meant to us. It was truly a crossroads in our lives. So, since we got so much out of that experience and being Evans Scholars and going to the University of Colorado on a full-ride scholarship, both of us have worked, ever since we could afford to, to give back to a great organization that gave us so much.”
As part of giving back, George was the general chairman of the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club, outside of Denver. As chairman of the board and president of Castle Pines Golf Club, he appointed older brother Duffy to serve as general chairman of the 2024 BMW Championship, which will be played this week and showcase the PGA Tour’s top 50 players on the second stop of the FedExCup Playoffs.
The kicker is that all proceeds from the BMW Championship will benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, so the Solich brothers’ volunteer work is giving opportunity right back to those who are walking in their paths.
After seeing a story in Golf World magazine on Sankaty Head Golf Club’s caddie camp, George forwarded the piece to Ed Mate, executive director of the Colorado Golf Association, which was planning for a comprehensive headquarters at CommonGround Golf Course in the Denver suburb of Aurora.
“I told Ed, ‘We don’t need buildings; we need a program,’” George said. “‘We need a caddie camp. We need to figure out a way to develop more caddie programs to give more kids in need the opportunity to not only learn how to caddie but learn the game of golf and potentially get the Evans Scholarship.’”
Mate, a master administrator, built a business plan for the program which was dubbed the Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy and opened in 2012. It is operated by the CGA but has the fingerprints of the Solich brothers throughout, particularly when talking about their past as caddies.
Duffy estimates that 500 youngsters have participated in the Solich Academy, with 74 enrolled in 2024. The Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy has expanded from CommonGround to The Broadmoor, Meridian Golf Club in Englewood, Lincoln Park Golf Course in Grand Junction and Fort Collins Country Club. From the Broadmoor and the Solich Academy, 52 caddies are Evans Scholarship recipients. At each of the chapters, caddie use is promoted by using a subsidized system in which grants pay for the base fee and participating golfers have an option to tip.
“I had a sharp rifle shot approach to going to college, and it was through the Evans Scholarship. It was a dream come true, and it changed the direction and focus of our life.”
Duffy Solich
The Solich Academy broadens its educational approach and is not focused only on golf and caddieing as it adds “financial literacy” as well as character building based on the 10-point “Cowboy Code,” which was popularized by the late actor Gene Autry and more recently published by author and financier James P. Owen in his book “Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street can learn from the Code of the West.”
“They have to come up with the 11th code, and those are usually better than the first 10,” George added with a grin. “Our goal is to create sustainable caddie programs that can take kids in a four-year period and teach them how to interact with adults.” He stressed the program would not work without the laudable work of the CGA.
The blueprint for the academy has been adopted in Wisconsin, California and Arizona, Duffy said.
The brothers agree that their middle-class background fuels their desire to provide what they were given through the Evans Scholarship.
“I had a sharp rifle shot approach to going to college, and it was through the Evans Scholarship,” Duffy said. “It was a dream come true, and it changed the direction and focus of our life.”
Following right along, George said: “Looking back, it was the biggest fork in the road in my entire life. It’s why both of us feel compelled to give back to this program.”
The BMW Championship will offer a unique event for Evans Scholars and alumni called the Evans Scholars Invitational, a 24-foursome, walking amateur player fundraiser. Current Evans Scholars and alumni also will be welcomed in the Evans Scholar hospitality area, which is part of the record-setting corporate sales build at Castle Pines.
The tie-ins of Evans Scholarship, the Caddie and Leadership Academy, the Western Golf Association and the PGA Tour and the BMW all point to the pay-it-forward attitudes of the Solich brothers.
“It’s not a gift or a scholarship that gives kids anything other than an opportunity,” Duffy said. “All of their stories are opportunity-based. It’s about these aggressive young people who take an opportunity and make something out of it.”