Or, at least, so the thinking goes.

But while caddies in the U.S. are certainly less prevalent than they were 50 or 75 years ago, they’re far from disappearing. In fact, in Colorado the numbers reflect a slight upswing in their usage in recent years.

And, by the looks of things at the third annual Colorado Caddie Summit, held Tuesday at Lakewood Country Club, there’s certainly some room for hope for those who care about a venerable institution of golf.

For the second straight year, about 70 people gathered for the event, many representing a variety of Colorado clubs that utilize caddies. Some have huge programs, some very small, but they all think enough of caddies that they take time out of their busy schedules to meet for about four hours and share data, best practices and other information that assure that this golf tradition will continue in the modern era.

“I think we’ve had some pretty good movement with the health and growth of caddie programs in the state,” George Solich, one of the namesakes for the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy at CommonGround Golf Course, noted earlier this year.

And the Colorado Caddie Summit has helped in that regard. Attendance at the event has grown by multiples since the inaugural summit was held two years ago.

“This Caddie Summit has been a big, big factor in the whole deal because it’s brought awareness to a lot of clubs, a lot of golf professionals, a lot of members within clubs in the state,” said John Ogden, the head professional at Cherry Hills Country Club, which features one of the largest and most successful caddie programs in the state. “It’s been a slow, grass-roots program. This is the third (summit) we’ve had. I remember the first one, two years ago at Denver Country Club, we just had two or three tables (of people). We had it last year at Cherry Hills and it’s just kind of expanded.

“You get more and more people involved — just get them here and hear the stories — and I’ll tell you what, that’s been the key factor in the whole thing. That’s created some momentum, in my opinion.”

More than 20 golf clubs in the state include caddie programs, and the ranks are growing gradually. For instance, Columbine Country Club in Littleton had a thriving caddie program decades ago. But after it died out, it’s been revived in the new millennium and in 2013 it produced more than 1,100 caddie loops.

In addition, the overall number of caddie loops reported in Colorado is on an uptick. The total shared with the CGA through the 2013 caddie survey was 32,085, a 2.7 percent increase over 2012.

“The feel and the vibe and the energy and the excitement around caddies is exponentially greater than when I started working for the CGA,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA and a former caddie himself. “It’s night and day. Look at Columbine Country Club. That’s a great example. Year over year, I think we’re continuing to see positive momentum, but in the last 20 years, it’s unbelievable how much we’ve seen.”

Cherry Hills is among the clubs that has seen growth. It’s always had a large caddie program, but in the last six or seven years, it has gone from seeing 27 percent of all its rounds featuring a caddie, to seeing that number jump close to 50 percent, according to Ogden.

All of that certainly doesn’t mean caddie usage is suddenly going to skyrocket in Colorado. With carts often providing a major revenue stream for clubs, and with the cost of taking a caddie usually exceeding that of using a cart, there are some non-deniable headwinds. But with some commitment from golf traditionalists — and those who believe that caddying can teach kids invaluable lessons — some headway can be made at the margin.

“We’ve gotten a number of additional clubs who are interested in giving (caddie programs) a try,” said Bob Webster, state chairman for the Western Golf Association, which sponsors the Evans Caddie Scholarship. “Whether that ultimately catches on (and there’s a significant resurgence in caddying), time will tell.”

What may help give caddying in Colorado a lift is the fact that the 2014 BMW Championship PGA Tour event is being played at Cherry Hills in the first week of September. The WGA runs the BMW Championship and all of the tournament’s proceeds benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation. In other words, more than any other week on the PGA Tour, caddies are at the forefront during the BMW Championship.

“The P.R. that will be done at the BMW and on TV with the BMW Championship will help open some eyes as far as the benefits of caddying and the possibility of being an Evans Scholar,” said Webster, himself an Evans Scholar alum. “I would be very surprised if we didn’t see a surge next spring — a year from now — in the number of kids going to clubs wanting to caddie.”

The CGA and CWGA, being partners with the WGA in the support of the Evans Scholars and the scholarship house at the University of Colorado, are particularly cognizant of the spark the BMW Championship can produce for caddying in the state.

“It’s a great opportunity to draft and use the bully-pulpit of that kind of exposure to talk about caddying and the Evans Scholarship,” Mate said. “It’s just going to raise awareness; it’s that simple.”

The Evans Scholarship pays full tuition and housing for each recipient. If renewed for four years, it’s estimated to be worth more than $70,000. To be considered for an Evans Scholarship, applicants must have excellent and extensive caddie records, very strong academic results, show outstanding character and leadership, and demonstrate financial need.

In another sign that caddying might be on an upward trend in Colorado, both the number of Colorado teenagers awarded the Evans Scholarship this year (14) and the number of applicants (43) matched or exceeded the most in more than two decades.

But beyond such possibilities, Ogden sees another benefit of bolstering caddie programs.

“With all the data on people getting out of golf and that sort of thing, a lot of that kind of corresponds to the dying of the caddie programs,” he said. “So if you can slowly bring that back — you can’t do it overnight, but you can make small steps — you can make a difference. If you get the young kids exposed to golf, more than likely they’re going to start playing.”
 

George Solich figures there are two ways to approach his job as general chairman for the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club.

“You can be a figurehead and let everyone else do all the work, or you can dive in — and I’ve dived in and it’s been really fun,” Solich said recently.

Putting on a PGA Tour event is no small matter. Conducting the first one to be held in Colorado in eight years adds to the magnitude. And the fact that it’s a FedEx Cup playoff event — with only the top 70 players in the world competing — ratchets it up another notch.

With the 2013 BMW Championship taking place this week at Conway Farms in Lake Forest, Ill., it will be a year from this month that Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and the like will put Cherry Hills to the test. In fact, it’s less than a year as tournament week is Sept. 1-7.
 

Tournament organizers have been gearing up for a long time, but this week is another big step as Solich and roughly 10 executive committee members and six Cherry Hills staffers are spending a couple of days at the 2013 BMW Championship. It’ll be a valuable live-action lesson for many in the group.

“You can always learn something,” Solich said. “We’ve paired (the 2014 organizers with their 2013 counterparts) and we’re actually spending the day with them. You just get to see it visually. And for any executive committee member who hasn’t seen it, it’s an impressive look. We hope to learn as much as we can in two days.”

This week marks the third BMW Championship Solich personally has attended. As a Western Golf Association director, he’s very familiar with the association that conducts the tournament. Solich is also an alumnus of the Evans Caddie Scholarship program, the BMW Championship’s beneficiary. (Solich, in red, is pictured above on the Golf Channel set at Conway Farms with fellow Coloradan and Evans Scholar alum Bob Webster, a WGA governor.)

As one of the biggest golf events the state has hosted since its last men’s major — the 1985 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills — the BMW Championship has already created quite a buzz in Colorado.

Solich reports that in just the two days of the priority ticket sale that took place last month, the tournament sold $600,000 in tickets. “We set every record ever for a BMW Championship,” he noted. “We’re starting to see a really high demand, which we’re really excited about.”

And with 2,650 volunteers needed for the tournament, more than 2,400 people have already registered. “We’re a year out, so I think that says a tremendous amount considering it costs $145 to become a registered volunteer. We think that’s a terrific number,” Solich said.

In addition, the 2014 BMW Championship’s hospitality offerings are about 60 percent sold.

In short, making next year’s tournament at Cherry Hills a big success is a major priority for Solich and the event’s other organizers.

Three members of the WGA-hired Bruno event team who are working on the 2014 BMW Championship have been based out of Solich’s Energy IV business offices for the last year. And some of the Energy IV staff and interns have been devoting significant time to the tournament as well.

“There are a lot of balls in the air, but it’s been fun,” Solich said.

Note: For those wishing to financially support the Evans Scholarship program, the WGA has launched a “Text to Donate” campaign. Those wanting to contribute can text CADDIE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Evans Scholars Foundation.

(Pictured below is part of the Colorado contingent that traveled to this week’s BMW Championship. Back row, from left: Brittany Brownrigg, Dan Quinn, Dave Lee, Rob Link, Todd Gervasini and Bob Webster. Front row, from left: CGA executive director Ed Mate, Christie Austin, George Solich and Bill Bergner.)
 

The Eisenhower-Evans Scholars are celebrating their 50th anniversary at the University of Colorado, but rarely do they receive such a notable guest from CU as they did Tuesday evening.

Phil DiStefano, the chancellor of the CU-Boulder campus for the last 2 1/2 years, accepted an invitation to come to the caddie scholarship house, which is located just across Broadway from the university. The leader of CU’s main campus spent about an hour with the EE Scholars and leadership of the Western Golf Association and the CGA, who co-sponsor the Eisenhower-Evans Scholars along with the CWGA.

The EE Scholarship is one of the flagship programs for both the CGA and CWGA, and Colorado donors provide almost all of the year-to-year scholarship costs at CU.

DiStefano (pictured above, third from left) went on a guided tour of the house, then met with the 40-plus Scholars, who each introduced themselves, noting the club at which they caddied and what their major at CU is.

“In celebration of the 50th year of the Scholars being on the campus, this was a great opportunity for the chancellor to learn about the Evans Scholars program,” said Bob Webster, a former Evans Scholar at CU and currently the WGA director responsible for the CU scholarship house. “It was also an opportunity for the Scholars to learn about university management.

“The relationship between CU and the Evans Scholars has been very effective over many years. (The scholarship) has brought in many tuition dollars and a graduation rate of over 90 percent.”

Since the 1960s, about 400 Eisenhower-Evans Scholars have graduated from CU, where one of the 14 Evans Scholarship houses is located. (There are between 9,000 and 10,000 alums nationwide.) In Colorado, the scholarship’s roots date back to the early 1960s with the CGA-created Eisenhower Scholarship for junior golfers, which merged later in that decade with the Illinois-based Evans Scholarship. The Evans Scholarship debuted in 1930, when it was founded by Chick Evans, a former caddie who won a U.S. Open and two U.S. Amateurs.

The scholarship provides full-tuition and housing support for students who have excellent academic and caddie records, show outstanding character, and demonstrate financial need. An Evans Scholarship is estimated to be worth well in excess of $50,000 if renewed for four years.

While the scholarship has a long history at CU, it isn’t often that it gets to put its best first forward in front of such a prominent member of university leadership.

“There’s a difference between being aware (of the program) and being a partner in what you’re doing,” said CGA executive director — and former Evans Scholar — Ed Mate. “Efforts to work with the university were personified with him being there.”

In addition to the current Evans Scholars being on hand for the Tuesday meeting with DiStefano, several representatives of the WGA were represented, along with Mate. WGA directors there were Webster, George Solich, Jim Bunch and Rick Polmear. WGA educational staffers Jeff Harrison, Bill Moses and Mike Maher likewise met with DiStefano. (The group is pictured together in front of the house.)

Solich, a former Evans Scholar who funds a full-time EE Scholarship recruiter position at the CGA, was instrumental in DiStefano’s visit as Solich is a key contributor to CU on many levels — academic, athletic and university-wide.

As for what DiStefano discussed during his visit, Mate said, “Basically he was saying that the Evans Scholars are perfect partners for the university with a graduation rate of over 90 percent. If students don’t graduate, they don’t make contributions back to the university, so having students graduate is a huge priority for them.”

In addition to the program having a 92 percent graduation rate, all 14 Evans Scholar houses have average grade point averages of over 3.0.

Those on hand Tuesday also noted that DiStefano paid more than cursory attention to the Scholars and their individual introductions.

“He seemed to take a real interest in the Scholars and their majors and their experience at CU,” Webster said. “He also noted how important it is to give back to the university, both financially and in general support.”

Mate said DiStefano was also impressed with the diversity of majors among the Scholars, and how the Scholars come from all across the state, in addition to other areas of North America.

The meeting with DiStefano was the culmination of a busy two-day stretch for the Scholars, who on Monday traveled to the Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs to help out at the Par Club tournament, which raises money for the Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship. (CLICK HERE for more information about the Par Club tournament.)