At the beginning of the training session for the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy at CommonGround Golf Course, some of the first-year caddies are a bit raw, to put it mildly. Many may have no idea how to carry a golf bag, much less the difference between a putter and a wedge.
“Basically, you’re teaching them what a tee box is, a flagstick, a fairway, the rough and the green,” said one of the trainers, Janene Guzowski (pictured at bottom), who chairs the CGA’s Caddie Development Committee. “Most of these kids, maybe they’ve watched Tiger Woods a few times, but they’ve never actually been on a golf course carrying a bag. Believe it or not, carrying a 25- or 30-pound bag 18 holes for a lot of kids is a huge challenge.”
But by the end of a nine-hole training session on the Kids Course at the CGA-owned and operated facility in Aurora, some of the newcomers already are handing their trainers their putters immediately after their shots stop on the greens, and are getting the basic gist of not walking in a players’ putting line.
It’s a work in progress, to be sure, but considering this is the first time on a golf course for a fair number of these prospective Solich Academy caddies, it’s a positive first step toward what could become a life-changing venture.
Thirty-eight boys and girls took part in Wednesday’s first on-course training session for the Solich Academy, which is entering its sixth season at CommonGround, its third at Meridian Golf Club and its first at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado Golf Courses in Grand Junction. Most of the kids participating in the program at CommonGround are from the area surrounding the golf course at First Avenue and Havana.
“I’m really impressed,” said another trainer, Tom Woodard (pictured at top with two caddies), a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer who as a teenager earned a full-ride Evans Scholarship for caddies to the University of Colorado. “The kids are super smart, they have good manners, they’re polite. That’s the one thing I noticed more than anything.
“I had two kids who had never been on a golf course. You start from A and go through Z (regarding training). After nine holes you could see how much experience they gained — little things like carrying the bag and cleaning the clubs and watching the ball and where to stand and making sure you don’t step in lines and holding flags against the pin. It’s amazing how much you can go over in nine holes.
“But one thing I try to share with them is, it’s a process. You’re going to make mistakes and get frustrated, but it’ll get better. You’ll catch on really fast.”
The Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy is one of the flagship programs at CommonGround, which takes pride in hosting numerous such initiatives that benefit the community and the game. Also on site are Community and Wellness Programs and the Hale Irwin Elite Player Program, among other things.
Founded in 2012, the Solich Academy — named for former caddies and current oilmen and philanthropists George and Duffy Solich — creates opportunities for boys and girls to build leadership skills and develop character through caddying and Academy programming.
The Solich Academy promotes the use of caddies by paying the base caddie fees through an educational grant, with participating golfers having the option of adding a tip. In addition to the caddying, a major component of the Academy is that all of the caddies are required to attend weekly leadership classes and do volunteer community-service work each summer. Ideally, some of the participants will become good candidates for the Evans Scholarship.
“The way I look at CommonGround is it’s a lab for a lot of different programs related to golf, and this is one of them,” CGA president Joe McCleary (pictured in second photo from the top) said regarding the Solich Academy. “We also have a chapter down at Meridian and we’re now into Grand Junction. And the model has been used for other places around the country. How can anyone argue with what we’re doing? I think it’s awesome, and I love being a part of it.”
Between the two existing Solich Academy sites, CommonGround (almost 1,100) and Meridian (about 330) produced more than 1,400 caddie loops for participating youngsters in 2016. Over the past five years, CommonGround and Meridian have generated almost 5,400 loops, with CommonGround on its own racking up almost 4,800. And 13 Solich caddies have gone on to earn full-tuition and housing Evans Scholarships at CU.
The normal pattern is for Solich caddies to spend two years at CommonGround (or Meridian), then graduate to other programs around the metro area such as those at Cherry Hills Country Club, Denver Country Club, Lakewood Country Club, etc.
Wednesday’s training group included both first- and second-year caddies, but mostly newbies. Almost three dozen trainers — which included leaders of the CGA and CWGA, Colorado PGA professionals, friends of CommonGround and others — volunteered their time to help teach the nascent caddies the basics.
Last week, the prospective 2017 Solich Academy caddies began their training by attending video sessions. The next couple of weeks, a much smaller group of trainers will run the caddies through “intensive situation training”, where they’ll learn about raking bunkers, work around the greens and other specifics.
Wary of overloading the kids with too much information too quickly — giving them the “firehose” approach, as CGA executive director Ed Mate calls it — Mate prefers to mainly emphasize keeping up and where to stand during this week’s first on-course session.
“That makes it so much more enjoyable — just enjoying the conversation and getting to know (the caddies) — rather than getting them distracted by giving them the firehose,” he said.
Following situation training for the remainder of April, the prospective Solich Academy 2017 roster may be winnowed a bit based on absences or lack of interest on the part of a few kids. Then the remaining youngsters will be taken out on the CommonGround championship course twice in May by a group of about eight trainers before getting their first official loop of the season, probably starting around Memorial Day weekend.
“We’re really going to drill them on the most important things: keeping up, and being pro-active on the putting green and not just standing back twiddling their thumbs,” Mate said. “The new kids will be so much better off because they will have caddied two rounds on the big course before they go to their first live loop.”
Of course, while the kids can reap potentially large dividends through participating in the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, the trainers tend to get a lot of fulfillment out of it as well.
McCleary, for instance, has served as a trainer all six years the Academy has existed. And his youngest daughter, Sydney, participated in the program the last two years and plans to caddie at Cherry Hills this summer.
“These are great kids and to see them grow and move on is special,” he said. “And it’s rewarding when you go to the Evans Scholars Selection Meeting and you see kids from this program making their way up to that and getting the scholarship. The Selection Meeting is one of my favorite events every year. I’ve been to that longer than we’ve had this program.
“But I love doing this. That’s just the best way to put it.”
