Considering he was receiving a golf-related award on Sunday evening, Armando Duarte didn’t used to have the most positive attitude about the game.

“Before I started (caddying), I never knew anything about golf,” the 15-year-old sophomore from Regis Jesuit High School said. “I thought golf was the most boring sport ever. Now, I’m back to playing it. I tried out for my high school team. I didn’t make it but I’m still playing. I think it’s a great thing to do. I got all that from caddying.”

And, specifically, from doing so as part of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, which on Sunday celebrated its seventh season with an awards barbecue at CommonGround Golf Course, the CGA-owned facility where the Academy started in 2012.

Over the seven golf seasons since, the Solich Academy has put together some impressive numbers:

— Now with three sites for the program around the state — CommonGround, Meridian Golf Club in Englewood and Lincoln Park/Tiara Rado in Grand Junction — the Academy has produced more than 8,500 caddie loops over the seven years. That includes a record total of more than 1,500 in 2018, with 46 caddies participating. There were 888 loops at CommonGround, 419 at Meridian and 215 in Grand Junction.

— This fall, a record-tying four Solich Academy caddies became Evans Scholars — three at the University of Colorado and one at Northwestern — after being awarded the full tuition and housing scholarship earlier in 2018. All told, 17 Solich kids have earned Evans Scholarships, almost all at CU.

— Then there are the 10 key elements of the “Code of the West”, which are key parts of the “leadership” aspect of the Solich Academy: 1) Live each day with courage; 2) Take pride in your work; 3) Always finish what you start; 4) Do what has to be done; 5) Be tough, but fair; 6) When you make a promise, keep it; 7) Ride for the brand; 8) Talk less and say more; 9) Remember that some things aren’t for sale; 10) Know where to draw the line.

— And on Sunday, at the season-ending awards barbecue at CommonGround, nearly 150 people showed up for the festivities — caddies, their families, and supporters and organizers of the program.

That included one of the two people who lent their name and foundational support to the Solich Academy — brothers George and Geoff (Duffy) Solich. Both caddied themselves as teenagers — at The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs — and subsequently were awarded Evans Scholarships at CU. They’ve long been successful Colorado-based oilmen and philanthropists.

“What always stands out to me is the family support these kids have,” Duffy Solich said after Sunday’s festivities. “It’s really cool to see all these people here.”

Indeed, the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy continues to blossom. The program promotes the use of caddies by paying their base fees through an educational grant, with participating golfers having the option of adding a tip.

And, as noted earlier, there’s also a hearty leadership aspect to the Academy. Each youngster who participates not only caddies but is required to attend weekly leadership classes and do community-service work each summer.

“I think it’s an amazing program,” said CGA co-president Joe McCleary, who has regularly helped train some of the Solich Academy caddies over the years. “It’s just a great program for the kids. It provides a lot of learning opportunities and I think it’ll make a difference in their lives.

“I’ve said it before: The golf course (at CommonGround) is a laboratory for a variety of programs, and this is one of those perfect programs that fits right into the laboratory.”

And that lab has produced kids like Duarte, who on Sunday was named “Caddie Leader of the Year” at CommonGround for 2018.

“I get discipline out of the program,” he said. “This is pretty much a first job for a teenager like me. It teaches us how it is to have a job.

“Many of my golfers really gave me confidence to open myself up more to new people because I was a really shy person. That was really good for me.”

At all the Colorado courses, the Solich Academy is a flagship program for the CGA, which devotes considerable resources in nurturing and managing it. CGA executive director Ed Mate, like the Soliches, attended CU on an Evans Scholarship. Also playing key roles in the Academy’s success from the assocation are manager of caddie development Emily Olson, director of youth programs Erin Gangloff and director of development Ryan Smith.

The CGA raised almost $40,000 for the Solich Academy this year through two trips that were generously donated by the Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon — with one being raffled off and the other being awarded through an auction.

BMW, a presenting partner of the CGA, is also the exclusive partner for the Solich Academy at CommonGround.

Besides CommonGround, Meridian, Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado, courses in southeast Wisconsin and in Oceanside, Calif., have taken the Solich Academy template and used it at their facilities, with tweaks as necessary.

“There’s room for people to take the ball and run with it” regarding expanding the program’s concept, Duffy Solich (left) said.

The normal pattern in the Denver metro area is for Solich caddies to spend two years at CommonGround or Meridian, then graduate to other programs around the area such as those at Cherry Hills Country Club, Denver Country Club, Lakewood Country Club, etc.

“It’s so gratifying to go to these other courses and see caddies who have graduated from here thrive at these other courses,” Duffy Solich noted.

Meridian came on board by establishing a Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy chapter four years ago. And now the Englewood-based club is up to 11 caddies who this year produced 419 loops, a season-high for the course. Paul Lobato, the longtime PGA head professional at Meridian, has shepherded the program at the club, and is trying to take it up a notch or two. Lobato and his team at Meridian spend 10 hours working with the kids before ever sending them out to caddie.

“I think we’re holding the kids to different expectations — that we expect them to get better each time out — to raise the level from being just bag carriers and sherpas to being more of a true caddie,” Lobato said.

Lobato finds it very gratifying to see the results — not only at his course, but for the Solich Academy program in general.

“It seems that caddying is very much back in vogue,” he said. “People are requesting them, people are interested in them. They’re interested in kids not only as caddies but as golfers and students and things like that. It is fun to see the growth of it.

“Caddies only used to be at certain places, but now they’re becoming a lot more common around town. Everybody is kind of getting their foot in the door. We just need to bust the door open and get stronger caddie programs with better caddies and people requesting them more.”

Here are the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy awards that were presented on Sunday:

Caddie Leader of the Year
CommonGround — Armando Duarte
Meridian — Tara Simone
Grand Junction — Chloe Manchester

Congeniality Award
CommonGround — Anthony Montoya-Olivas
Meridian — Kimberly Helfer
 
Rookie of the Year
CommonGround — Lindsi Reyes
Meridian — Antonio Vasquez

Most Improved Caddie
CommonGround — Jaziel Guerrero
Meridian — Aidan McMahon
Grand Junction — Kalea Potter
 
3D Award (Dedication-Determination-Desire)
CommonGround — Simon Seyoum
Meridian — Logan Douglass
 

Elena King of Centennial and Patti Marquis of Evergreen were among those selected for the honor out of more than 1,700 LPGA-certified professionals around the world. This is the first awarding of what is expected to be annual honors.

King teaches out of CGA-owned and operated CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora as well as Meridian Golf Club. Marquis is an instructor who works out of Fossil Trace Golf Club in Golden in the summer and Primm (Nev.) Golf Club in the fall and winter.

An independent golf industry selection committee picked this year’s LPGA teacher award winners after reviewing eligible applications.

“The LPGA is excited to partner with Women’s Golf Journal on this annual recognition,” LPGA chief teaching officer, Nancy Henderson, said in a press release. “More than 70 percent of our members teach the game of golf for a living and they are dedicated to the advancement of golf through teaching golfers of all ages and abilities to enjoy the game of golf.”

For the entire list of Top 50 LPGA teachers, CLICK HERE.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy should be in full blush as it embarks on its sixth season.

These days, the Academy is not only thriving at the course at which it started — the CGA-owned and operated CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora — but its ideas are taking root both statewide and in a few locations elsewhere.

Currently, the seeds are being planted on the Western Slope, at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado Golf Courses, where the city of Grand Junction recently agreed to host a Solich pilot program, starting this year.

CGA executive director Ed Mate said the plan is for four youngsters to caddie at the two Grand Junction municipal courses this golf season, and to participate in the accompanying Cowboy Ethics leadership program and to do volunteer work.

“We got great response from the city,” Mate said. “They’re totally on board. They want to support it. They feel it will be a real opportunity for a few kids. It’s exciting to be able to take our flagship program to that part of the state.”

Founded in 2012, the Academy — named for former caddies and current oilmen and philanthropists George and Duffy Solich (pictured below) — creates opportunities for boys and girls to build leadership skills and develop character through caddying and Academy programming. George Solich originally suggested the idea after reading a magazine article about a caddie camp in Nantucket, Mass.

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 for caddies at the University of Colorado.

Frank Wilkinson, a longtime Grand Junction resident and a member of the volunteer CGA Board of Governors since 2009, has spearheaded the effort to bring a Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy chapter to western Colorado. He’s seen how the Solich Academy has thrived at CommonGround and, over the last couple of years, at Meridian Golf Club in Englewood, and believes a scaled-down version will be ideal for his hometown.

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.

Based on the program’s goal of getting each caddie 30 loops or more each summer, the hope is to produce 120 loops or so in 2017 at the Solich Academy pilot program in Grand Junction.

“I’ve heard awesome, awesome stories about the kids who have participated in the program at CommonGround” from fellow CGA Governors and the association staff, Wilkinson said this week. “We anticipate we’re going to be successful. (If so), it can become a template for what can be done in other places around the state” — particularly at public courses that might be interested in small-scale programs.

Among Grand Junction residents, besides Wilkinson, who have helped the Solich Academy become a reality at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado are a variety of amateurs, PGA professionals and city employees: Rob Schoeber, director of Grand Junction Parks & Rec; Mike Mendelson, the head professional overseeing the two courses; Doug Jones, golf superintendent of GJ Parks & Rec; Rick Ott, men’s club president at Lincoln Park; and Dan Sommers, instructor at Lincoln Park.

“We’re going to need all these guys to continue to provide input to make this a success,” Wilkinson said.

Mate and Wilkinson made a recent presentation to Grand Junction officials that cemented the deal to bring the Solich Academy to the Western Slope.

“As the meeting developed it was interesting to see how they became engaged in the idea and starting seeing the benefits,” Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson, who calls Lincoln Park his home course, is a member of the men’s club at both Tiara Rado and Lincoln Park.

“Frank Wilkinson couldn’t be more passionate about kids and caddying,” Mate said. “He’s been lobbying for this for several years.”

Men’s club and women’s club events on weekdays at the two courses figure to create caddie loops, along with weekend events. Solich Academy advocates plan to engage such groups — via email blasts and the like — to make it known that caddies are available, and those advocates will also be the ones to coordinate arragements for specific loops.

“There’s going to be a learning curve for the players,” Wilkinson said. “Like myself, I haven’t taken a caddie very often. But both of these golf courses, the terrain is very amenable for this. They’re not very hilly.”

While Grand Junction will be the third active Solich Academy chapter in Colorado — Fort Collins Country Club at one point also featured Solich caddies — there are also several programs in other states that saw what was being done in Colorado and tried to create something similar, according to Mate.

That includes the Caddie & Leadership Academy of Southeast Wisconsin, launched by Phil Poletti, a Western Golf Association director who Mate calls “kind of the pied piper of caddie and leadership academies”; Goat Hill Park golf course in Oceanwide, Calif., started by John Ashworth of golf clothing fame; and the Golf Association of Philadelphia. Of those, the Wisconsin program most closely mirrors the Solich Academy model, down to the Cowboy Ethics leadership training. The Northern California Golf Association Youth on Course Caddie Academy also includes subsidized used of caddies, but no leadership training element.

“It’s a really good model,” George Solich said of the Solich Academy in September. “The goal is to have it at a lot of different places across the country that can benefit kids and give them an opportunity.

“We have some good momentum. It would be great to see it thrive (further). The Evans Scholars Foundation is moving this way too. They have a (WGA Caddie Academy) for girls in Chicago. John (Kaczkowski, president and CEO of the WGA) and I have talked (about) how does all this kind of fit together. I think the idea is, finding more kids you can give the opportunity to.”

Added Mate: “There are some organic things happening out there, which is great. We’re not saying our model has to be used.”

Whatever the case, the caddie academy idea is certainly gaining traction. And the Grand Junction pilot program is but the latest example, albeit a small one.

“This program is all about quality vs. quantity and about having the supply and the demand meet,” Mate said. “We don’t want to have 40 kids when there’s demand for four. But if there’s demand for 10 kids, we want to meet that demand. We’ll play that by ear. Knowing it’s a special person who takes a caddie, are there enough of those people out there to generate 120 loops for these four kids? If we achieve (that number), we’ve done well.”