As general chairman of the 2024 BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club, Geoff “Duffy” Solich presided over one of the most significant Colorado golf events since the same event came to Cherry Hills Country Club in 2014. But while that may have been the last PGA Tour event held in the Centennial State, 18 years had passed since Castle Pines had held its 21st and final International—a beloved regular stop on the PGA Tour.
The renovated course—at 8,130 yards the longest on the PGA Tour—delivered a worthy challenge for the world’s top players. The BMW generated $114.7 million in visitor revenue for the greater Denver metro area and was named the Tournament of the Year by the PGA Tour.
Most gratifying for Solich, the BMW raised a record $10.2 million for its sole charitable beneficiary—the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholars Foundation, which since 1930 has provided full tuition and housing college scholarships to high-achieving youth caddies. To date, the program has produced more than 12,575 male and female college graduates.
Duffy Solich is one of them. He and his younger brother, Castle Pines Golf Club’s chairman and president George Solich. caddied at the Broadmoor Hotel and Golf Club during the 1970s, earning them Evans Scholarships to the University of Colorado in Boulder. That life-changing experience led the Soliches to found the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy and The Broadmoor Caddie & Leadership Academy. Combined, those two programs have produced more than 50 Evans Scholars since 2012.
