CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — In 1981, when Castle Pines Golf Club was opening, Jack Nicklaus, who designed the course, loaned golf professional Keith Schneider from his home club at Muirfield Golf Club. All these years later, Schneider’s still on permanent loan at Castle Pines, rising to the role of general manager.
But 43 years ago, Schneider had a real problem on his hands — he needed 20-25 caddies for opening day and time was running out. In a moment of great ingenuity, he reached out to the president of the Evans Scholar house at the University of Colorado and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: he’d send a bus to pick up the caddies, pay them handsomely and on the ride home he’d supply a keg.
“The keg was the key,” Schneider said.
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One of the caddies who signed up was George Solich, then a Buffalo sophomore, who recalled there wasn’t even a clubhouse at Castle Pines, just a trailer. Forty-three years later, Solich, a 1983 Colorado Evans Scholar graduate, is the chairman and president at Castle Pines. On Wednesday, Solich and his older brother Duffy, the BMW Championship tournament chairman, were inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in recognition of their time spent caddying as young men and their dedication to youth caddie programs.
“Caddying changed our lives,” George said. “Getting the Evans Scholarship changed our lives.”
“Caddying has formed who I am, and it provides a great roadmap of service, hard work, trust, patience, teamwork and integrity,” Duffy said.
The brothers, who became very successful in the oil and gas business, both are major supporters of the Evans Scholarship and are the founders of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, as well as The Broadmoor Caddie & Leadership Academy, which together have produced 52 Evans Scholars.
George credited his brother, who began caddying two years before him, for dragging him to the caddie yard at the Broadmoor Resort in their hometown of Colorado Springs when he was 12 years old, and he worked as a caddie there until age 21. At 14, the caddie master pointed at him and three other caddies and said, “Come with me.”
“I thought we were in trouble,” George recalled. “But he told us we were going to be caddying for someone very special. I’m thinking, who am I caddying for, John Wayne?”
It turned out he carried the bag of Jack Vickers that day, who would go on to be the visionary founder of Castle Pines. George replaced him as the president and chairman after he died in November of 2018, and the club hasn’t skipped a beat.
“If George sets his mind to do something, you can bet your life he will get it done bigger and better than it’s ever been done before. He is as big a visionary as anyone I’ve ever met in golf,” said Jim Nantz, who served as the emcee of a dinner tribute to the International during which the Solich brothers received their awards. “His vision for Castle Pines was always grand and glorious – all the while paying a deep homage to its founder, Jack Vickers. I could not be more impressed.”
George has been instrumental in working with the Western Golf Association to bring the Tour to the Mile High City before. In 2014, he was the general chairman of the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills, which raised a then-record $3.5 million for the Evans Caddie Scholarship and was named the Tour’s Tournament of the Year.
“He was the visionary, the leader and the guy who made it happen,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the Colorado Golf Association. “He made it very clear at the very first meeting at Cherry Hills Country Club that this will be the best BMW Championship ever and how we are going to define that is very simple: we’re going to raise more money for the Evans Scholars Foundation than ever has been raised in the history of the tournament.”
The Solich brothers’ greatest contribution may be in the caddie program they started in 2012 at CommonGround Golf Course, a public course owned by the CGA in Aurora. After reading an article about the Sankaty Head caddie program in Massachusetts, George had an epiphany that Denver needed its own version. The CGA wanted help from the Soliches to build a new headquarters but he sent a copy of the article to Mate and said, “We don’t need buildings, we need programs.” Mate’s response: give me a month. He returned with a business plan to build the academy. Each of the caddies receives a grant for the summer and is taught to be a caddie and required to attend classes on leadership and financial literacy among other subjects.
“We’ve been teaching from the book of cowboy. We teach them the 10 principles of the Code of the West and make them come up with their 11th code,” George said. “We blueprinted it and now we have six academies on the Front Range and we’re in four states, including Arizona, Wisconsin and California.”
Their passion is only matched by their generosity. Todd Gervasini, a WGA officer, recounted how the Solich brothers agreed to help endow an Evans Scholar from Castle Pines. Given that Evans Scholarships are for full tuition and housing for the caddies who earn them, it’s estimated that the scholarship is worth an average of more than $125,000 if renewed for four years. (Colorado boasts 57 current Evans Scholars and 548 alumni.) George and Duffy put up $250,000 if the membership would step forward and match it for a total of $500,000.
“I sent an email out to 35 guys who love George and Duffy and my phone started blowing up. Every single guy said, ‘What do you need?’ ” recalled Gervasini. “I was done about 30 minutes later, I just couldn’t answer them all back fast enough, and I knew George and Duffy would want it to be in Castle Pines’ name, not their name. So it’s the Castle Pines Endowed Scholarship.”
The Caddie Hall of Fame is the first of two induction ceremonies this year for George, who is slated to join the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in December as part of a class that includes Wyndham Clark and Jennifer Kupcho.
“I’ve never met anybody more passionate than George Solich,” Mate said. “There’s a fire burning in him that is a rare thing. You pair that generosity and a desire to pay it forward and you have an amazing combination.”
