Ed Mate admittedly is a little biased, but he considers the Eisenhower-Evans Scholars Selection Meeting one of his favorite job-related duties of the year.
“It’s our flagship charity,” said the CGA’s executive director, himself a former Eisenhower-Evans Scholar at the University of Colorado. “It makes everything else we do pale by comparison. To see the looks on kids’ faces (during the final interview process) and think how we had a role in possibly changing the trajectory of someone’s life is pretty special.”
The Selection Committee Meeting took place Feb. 25 at Cherry Hills Country Club, with more than 100 prominent members of the Colorado golf community interviewing the finalists for the incoming class of Eisenhower-Evans Scholars. Recipients of the caddie scholarship, who soon will be announced, will receive full tuition and housing at the E.E. house at CU.
Each scholarship, which is renewable for four years, is projected to be worth almost $12,500 per year, or $50,000 over the course of four years of undergraduate work. Given that there are currently 37 Evans Scholars at CU, and that the number likely will reach the mid-40s in the fall, funding the scholarship is no small matter.
The Illinois-based Western Golf Association administers the scholarship and the 14 Evans Scholars chapter houses at universities primarily located in the Midwest. The WGA also owns all those E.S. houses. But the year-to-year funding of the Eisenhower-Evans house at CU is handled almost entirely by money raised in Colorado, and the primary funding sources in the state are closely linked to the CGA and the CWGA.
In 2009, $281,608 came from Par Club members in Colorado (who give at least $200 each), $71,205 from sales of CGA bag tags, $4,396 from CWGA bag tags, and $31,389 from the net proceeds of the annual Par Club tournament held in Colorado. Fittingly, much of that $388,598 total originates from the roughly 20 Colorado clubs that have prominent caddie programs.
For instance, the Colorado clubs with the most Par Club members are Cherry Hills Country Club, Roaring Fork Club, Lakewood Country Club and Denver Country Club. Cherry Hills, by the way, ranks eighth nationally in Par Club support by individual clubs. Meanwhile, the most money raised from CGA bag tag sales comes from Denver CC, the Broadmoor, Columbine CC, Boulder CC, Castle Pines Golf Club and Cherry Hills.
But with tuition having increased by 55 percent over the last three years, it’s difficult to keep up with the costs. Tuition expenses alone for the CU Scholars are projected to be more than $330,000 in 2010. Nationally, costs for the E.S. program have risen so dramatically that they exceeded income for the first time in 2009.
With something so valuable at stake — the Evans Scholarship is one of the largest privately-funded scholarship programs in the nation — it’s little wonder why the Selection Committee Meeting is so well attended. At Cherry Hills, there were representatives of clubs and courses from throughout the state, as well as plenty of CGA and CWGA staffers and members of their governing boards. And the WGA has some of its leadership based in Colorado, with Denver’s Jim Bunch being vice chairman and Boulder’s Bob Webster being a WGA director.
Mate realizes that many people primarily associate the CGA and CWGA with administering the USGA handicap system in Colorado and with running many golf tournaments, but the charitable component is often overlooked. The Eisenhower-Evans program is a significant and tangible manifestation of those efforts.
“I would like the CGA to equal charitable outreach for the good of the game,” Mate said.
Not only have 388 former caddies graduated from CU after receiving an Evans Scholarship, but the existence of the scholarship helps keep local caddie programs viable, maintaining a valuable tradition of the game.
In fact, the Eisenhower-Evans program is such a priority that a full-time CGA staff position, held by Erin Bessey, is devoted to recruiting outstanding applicants for the scholarship. A former Eisenhower-Evans Scholar, George Solich, funds that position.
Beyond that, history tells us that the Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship at CU wouldn’t exist at all if not for the CGA. After all, back in 1961, then-CGA president Dick Campbell was the driving force behind the establishment of the Eisenhower Scholarship for junior golfers. Campbell, a friend of Dwight Eisenhower, asked the former U.S. President if he’d be willing to lend his name to the scholarship. Eisenhower, an avid golfer, gave the OK.
After a few years, the Eisenhower Scholarship drew the attention of the WGA, which had run the Evans Scholarship since 1930, when it was established by Charles “Chick” Evans, a former caddie who won a U.S. Open and two U.S. Amateurs. Even though the Eisenhower Scholarship wasn’t specifically for caddies at the time, WGA officials approached Campbell about merging it with the Evans Scholars program, and the two joined forces in the mid-1960s. Shortly thereafter, the WGA purchased the Phi Gamma Delta house — coincidentally, Hale Irwin was a member of that fraternity during that time — and turned it into the home of the Eisenhower-Evans Scholars.
“It gives our chapter uniqueness,” Mate said of the inclusion of Eisenhower’s name. “Eisenhower has a history of golf in the state (especially at Cherry Hills), and to have an ex-President associated with the scholarship is neat.”
Another major change for the program came about in the early 1970s when the first female was awarded an Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship. Nowadays, about one-fifth of the active Scholars are women.
Evans Scholarships are awarded on the basis of an excellent caddie record, very strong academics, financial need, and outstanding character and integrity. The results speak for themselves as the house grade point average in the fall semester for CU Scholars was 3.1, and 90 percent of scholarship recipients nationwide graduate from college.
Despite the worth of the scholarship, the number of active Scholars at CU dwindled for a time to below 30. But with applications over the last four years averaging 26, the number of Scholars in the CU house will soon exceed 40 for the first time since 2002. And the number of Scholars from Colorado is expected to surpass 40 for the first time since 1996 (there are also six current E.E. Scholars from out of state).
Applicants “are not competing against each other; they’re going against a standard (to qualify for the scholarship),” Mate said. “But the bar does get raised depending on overall quality. The stronger the applicant base gets, the higher the standard gets.”
