Mark Passey had a long career before working full-time in the golf industry, but even way back when, he seemed destined to devote much of his life to the game.
Noting that he caddied periodically for Frank Beard on the PGA Tour in the 1960s, Passey said he learned he didn’t want to tote bags for a living. “But being inside the ropes is special,” Passey added in a recent phone interview. “I thought, ‘I’d love to work at the USGA sometime.’ The fact that it happened is a miracle.”
Indeed, after spending 19 years working for Smith’s Food & Drug in Utah, Passey was hired as the executive director of the Utah Golf Association in the mid-1980s. And for the last 27 1/2 years, he’s been a director of regional affairs for the USGA, with his region always including Colorado. But, as of the end of June, that will change as Passey — who recently turned 70 — is planning to retire.
The Highlands Ranch resident will work his 22nd U.S. Open — this one at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, which will conclude June 18 or 19 — then tie up loose ends for the remainder of that month before bidding adieu to his days as a USGA employee.
“I won’t like it,” Passey said when asked what his emotions will be as he leaves. “It’s very bittersweet. I’m not leaving because I don’t like (what I’m doing anymore). It’s just the right time. I’m 70 and I want time to be home with my family.
“But I’m going to miss my collegauges and the work. I’ve been blessed to do this job. It’s a real privilege. But I’ve thought about it for a long time. And I like to look forward, not back. There’s a lot of fun still left in life. I have an interest in a lot of things. I look at it as a new chapter.”
Besides retirement giving Passey more time to spend with wife Charlene and on (non-golf-related) travel and various others interests, he notes it makes sense from a work standpoint.
“A lot of big projects the USGA are working on are on 1-yard line: (major modernization of the) Rules of Golf, state and regional golf association changes (with the USGA streamlining relationships with SRGAs as part of the USGA’s new membership engagement model), and the worldwide handicap system. They’re all happening at once, so the timing was right.”
The CGA and CWGA have had a close relationship with Passey over his 27-plus years with the USGA as Colorado is one of nine states currently included in the Central Region, for which Passey is the USGA regional affairs director. Other states in the region are Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri — and Passey has traveled to each at least annually. But that relationship is closer for the Colorado associations because Passey has been based in the state since 2006, when he and Charlene moved from Utah, his home for about 50 years of his life.
“Mark came into the golf industry after having had a previous career — and that’s unusual now,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA. “Today’s generation of golf administrators are (mainly) P.J. Boatwright Interns right out of college and they go into it right from the beginning. But Mark was a grocer, got involved (with the Utah Golf Association) as a volunteer, which led to this. … So for 27 years, he’s been pinching himself that he’s been so lucky. He appreciates more than most what the real world is. He’s made the most of those 27 years.
“But the thing about Mark — and I wrote a letter to him and tried to sum it up — he’s really unique in his appreciation for the history for the game. He has great perspective on the game. He has a great loyalty to the USGA, but not blind loyalty; he’s critical at times when he disagrees, but he’s thoughtful. He doesn’t jump to the most popular, trending opinion on things. I have great respect for him and we’ve been very fortunate he’s been here in Colorado because we’ve gotten to see more of him than many of the other states he’s responsible for. We’re going to miss him for sure.”
Mate has known Passey since 1989. Laura Robinson has worked with him for a much shorter time — she became executive director of the CWGA in late 2015 — but she likewise appreciates the work he’s done. (At left, last summer Passey presented Robinson with a plaque from the USGA commemorating the CWGA centennial and honoring the association for its longtime service to the game.)
“Mark has done an incredible job for golf in Colorado,” Robinson said. “We’re going to miss him a lot and I hope he misses us equally.
“He’s helped roll out new programs, he’s a resource for both the CGA and CWGA to go to, he’s our point of contact with the USGA (and) he gives us a heads-up what’s happening. He’s just passionate about golf.”
State and regional golf associations like the CGA and the CWGA run many USGA qualifiers, are sanctioned caretakers of USGA course rating and handicap systems, serve as a clearing house for the USGA Rules of Golf, and share the USGA’s emphasis on outreach and developmental programs, particularly at the junior level. In the last decade, the USGA has provided generous grants to a couple of programs at the CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course — $175,000 for the Kids Course and $10,000 for the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy. The national association also funds Boatwright Internships which benefit the CGA and CWGA. In many ways, the CGA and CWGA have long served as unofficial franchises of the USGA.
Passey, who was the Utah Golf Association’s executive director from mid-’80s until the USGA hired him in 1989, was inducted into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame two years ago. He’s one of six regional affairs directors who serve as liaisons between the USGA and SRGAs and as facilitators for USGA programs at a local level, sharing best practices and helping make sure those programs run successfully. Passey also attends Rules of Golf workshops and the USGA annual meeting, among many other events.
Although the Texas Golf Association is no longer part of Passey’s regional territory, it originally was. And he takes some pride in his role in helping the TGA improve and grow dramatically as an organization to the point that it’s now one of the largest state and regional golf associatons in the country.
More generally, Passey is also proud of how the USGA has “really raised the bar” in recent decades regarding improving USGA qualifying tournaments — largely run by state and regional golf associations — and implementation of USGA programs “where the rubber meets the road,” as he once said.
In addition to his role regarding regional affairs per se, Passey is highly regarded for his work at USGA championships. Over the years, he’s worked roughly 140 of them — with the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Pinehurst and the U.S. Open at Erin Hills this spring marking the last of his run as a USGA employee. That 140 includes quite a few in Colorado, including two U.S. Amateurs that Cherry Hills Country Club has hosted. In fact, his first USGA championship as an employee was the ’90 U.S. Am won by Phil Mickelson, marking Mickelson’s only USGA title to date. (Passey is pictured at left, in white, at the 2012 U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills.)
At those championships, he’s had a variety of different roles, including scoring and Rules of Golf-related work, player registration, staff person in charge or an assistant. But his work overseeing the large scoreboards at many events has often drawn the most attention.
“Mark is probably most known for his incredible skills doing scoreboards — and not just the calligraphy part but the mathematical part,” Mate said. “He’s really a savant. He can spell the name of every player in the game of golf. Every year at the U.S. Open he’ll sit there at check-in and he has this great curiosity and he knows the etymology of names.
“He has this acronym for scoreboards called ART. A scoreboard is accurate, readable and timely — and they’re all important. I don’t care how pretty it is; if it’s not accurate it’s no good; if it’s so pretty you can’t read it, it’s no good; and if it goes up 10 minutes after the tournament is over, what good is it? It needs to be timely. That’s going to be his legacy, I think.
“That’s a skill that’s no longer really being used. Everybody says there’s TV, mobile devices and real-time scoring — and that’s true. But there’s no way, even with technology, you can have one display that has every piece of information on it more efficiently than a hand-done scoreboard. You can get every data point you need. And the phone is more cumbersome. It’s all there but it’s harder to get to.
“(Also), his ability to add up a scorecard in his head is just incredible. Everything is (based off of) 4s, so it’s plus and minus (from) 4s. But he’s so beyond that. If he sees a 3 and a 5 he knows that’s 8 so he doesn’t even see those. The most amazing thing to watch is when he does a scoreboard for the U.S. Amateur — which is 312 players at two sites. He’s not sitting down all day. Everything he’s doing is by hand and it’s amazing.”
In fact, Passey is so adept with scoreboard paper and scoreboard pens that he’s created some golf-related artwork with them that are good enough that two or three of his pieces are displayed in the USGA Museum and he’s given many others away to people who originally requested to buy them. In retirement, Passey said he may do some fine-art versions of golf course landscapes.
Other things that Passey thinks are possibilities in retirement for him are doing some golf course architectural consulting, possibly contributing to a book, and traveling to places he hasn’t been before.
“I’ve traveled everywhere in the U.S., to the point that I can (drive around many) cities without a map,” he said. “But I haven’t been to Europe. … I’m fascinated by the world.
“One thing I’m trying really hard not to do is plan every day. At every championship that I’ve worked, you’re up at about 4:30 a.m. and you don’t get back until about 10 p.m. I’ve done a lot of that for a long time.”
But Passey is not quite done yet — even at significant championships held in Colorado. In fact, he plans on serving as a rules official at the men’s Pac-12 Conference Championships that Boulder Country Club is hosting April 28-30.
And even after retiring, Passey said he and Charlene will continue to live in Colorado.
“I’ve been fortunate to go to such great places,” said Passey, who has two grown daughters in Utah and Pennsylvania, along with grandchildren. “I’ve gone everywhere in America. I asked myself, ‘where would you rather live (than Colorado)?’ I can’t think of anywhere.”
