The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame will gain six new members this coming weekend, when its 51st class is inducted.
Three made the cut based on their play on the course. Denver native Wyndham Clark won the 2023 US Open. Littleton-born Jennifer Kupcho emerged victorious at the LPGA’s 2022 Chevron Championship. And the lesser-known Gene Torres, of Trinidad, beat out 22 future state hall of famers at the Colorado Open Championship in 1972.
“Here are people who have accomplished so much in the game, especially with Wyndham and Jennifer,” said Hall of Fame Executive Director Jon Rizzi. “And even though he passed almost 20 years ago, it was absolutely time for Gene to get in too.”
The trio will be joined by three businessmen: Homebuilder Pat Hamill, founder of Green Valley Ranch Golf Club; Joe Assell, founder and CEO of Golftec; and George Solich, co-founder of the Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy.
“Their accomplishments are pretty bulletproof,” Rizzi said.
The ceremony, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency DTC this Sunday, will bring the Hall of Fame’s total membership up to 154.
BusinessDen spoke with the three business leaders ahead of their induction.
Pat Hamill
Homebuilder Pat Hamill, 65, started golfing about three decades ago. But the founder of Oakwood Homes — who stepped down from the CEO job earlier this year — has swung big since.
“I’m sure it isn’t for my golfing abilities,” Hamill said of his induction. “But it’s always nice to be recognized for one’s good work.”
In the early 2000s, he developed Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, which he sold this past summer. He also purchased the Colorado Open Championships in 2004. Green Valley Ranch has hosted the event since. In 2005, Hamill started First Tee, a nonprofit that teaches golf to underprivileged kids at Green Valley.
He has also created and co-chaired two charity tournaments: the Jack A. Vickers Invitational, which started in 2008 and ran for 12 years at Castle Pines Golf Club, and the Carmel Classic, a multiday fall tournament at Pebble Beach in its fourth year. The two events have raised millions for several charities, notably the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.
“We have an outrageously good time playing golf and do so many wonderful things for nonprofits and people in need,” Hamill said.
His game highlights include scoring an eagle at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and winning the Colorado Open Pro-Am alongside partner and fellow inductee Jennifer Kudlow. He belongs to Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach, Castle Pines Golf Club and Eagle Springs Golf Club in Vail.
“It’s a wonderful sport you get to play with good friends and family,” he said. “And what we do for the less fortunate is one of my great joys in life.”
Joe Assell
Joe Assell has always had a golf job. The 52-year-old worked at courses throughout middle and high school, starting at age 12. When it was time to go to college, the Chicago native picked Mississippi State because of its professional golf-management program.
After graduating in 1994, he founded Golftec in 1995. Today, the company is the largest golf instructor and club fitter in the world.
“It’s really a recognition of what’s been a 30-year journey for me,” Assell told BusinessDen. “It started by myself in 1995, and today we’re 1,300 employees strong with 260 Golftecs around the world.
“I’m very humbled to be inducted into such a small and prestigious group based on a 30-year career of helping people get better at golf.”
Assell came to Denver for an internship at Cherry Hills Country Club during his senior year of college. He worked under fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Clayton Cole and founded Golftec with his guidance.
The company originally operated out of a strip mall and used an early computer that could measure a golf swing. Since then, Golftec has given over 18 million lessons, earning him PGA’s 2021 Golf Executive of the Year.
Some sessions also include the use of Golftec’s OptiMotion system, which uses cameras and AI to analyze over 4,000 swing data points. It is used by CBS during The Masters and its other golf broadcasts to give viewers more stats.
In 2022 Golftec also acquired SkyTrak, the largest golf simulator company in the world, he said.
Assell’s father introduced him to the game when he was 5 years old. They, along with Assell’s three brothers and mom, still go on annual golf trips. He is a member at Cherry Hills Country Club — a big step up from intern.
“I’m just incredibly blessed,” he said. “The people you meet, the experiences you have, the places you go, relationships you build and the culture around golf is something everyone should have in their life.”
George Solich
George Solich unwillingly got into the gentleman’s game. His older brother Duffy “dragged” him to caddy at The Broadmoor Golf Club when he was 12.
There, Solich caddied for Jack Vickers, who he would eventually succeed as president of Castle Pines Golf Club. Years later, he also carried Jack Nicklaus’ clubs on Castle Pine’s opening day.
“It’s crazy that I got to experience that first Castle Pines experience as a caddy,” said Solich, who was born in Pueblo and raised in Colorado Springs. “I guess it was fate that I’d end up president at Castle Pines.”
That caddying journey led Solich, 63, to cofound the Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy at CommonGround Golf Course in 2012. The program aims to teach leadership skills to kids through caddying, and 50 Evans Scholars — a full-tuition and housing scholarship for underprivileged, high-achieving caddies — have come out of the program. Solich and his brother Duffy, who also has a heavy hand in the academy, were both Evans Scholars.
He also is the lead donor of the Colorado Golf Foundation, which donates to several youth-specific golf causes.
“It’s given so much to me, and I really felt like I had to give back,” he said.
Solich helped bring the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship to Cherry Hills in 2014 and again this summer. Both years saw record raises for the Evans Scholars Foundation.
Since 2018, when Solich became Castle Pines president, he has overseen multimillion-dollar course and clubhouse renovations.
He, like Vickers, made his money in oil and gas. He founded three firms with variations of the Cordillera Energy Partners name and sold each, respectively, in 2003, 2008 and 2012. His most recent firm, FourPoint Energy, sold a joint venture it had formed for $6.2 billion in 2021. He remains chairman and CEO of FourPoint.
“We have a lot of great members that support my vision of being the best, just like Jack’s vision was to be the best,” he said of Castle Pines. “It was really his idea, his invention, his place. My job is just to take the Picasso that is there and make it better and better.”
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He belongs to the club, among others around the state and country, and said virtually everything in his life revolves around golf. He even met his wife, Carol, outside of the Evans Scholarhouse while he was at University of Colorado Boulder.
“It’s been a great love affair with the game and all it’s brought me,” he said.
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