Before the Block Party--A Salute to PGA Club Pro Bob Boyd
- David Stone
- May 15
- 7 min read
Updated: May 24
If you were watching the telecast, you probably still remember Jim Nantz's call as the ball was in the air. "The fairy tale story...," Nantz says, pausing dramatically as we followed its flight, "JUST GOT BETTER!" Who can forget Michael Block's slam dunk ace at the 15th in the final round of the 2023 PGA Championship? Over the years, few club pros had been as competitive in the PGA Championship. In fact, former Masters champ Bernhard Langer once said he wished there were fewer club pros participating in the major. But this is their championship, and it belongs to them. They needed Michael Block. Heck, WE needed Michael Block. For a few brief moments in May of 2023, he was ALL of us.
This week, Block will fit his glass slippers for Softspikes and bring his Cinderella show to Quail Hollow for his seventh start in the PGA Championship. But as the golfing media touts that “Blockie’s Back!” and salutes Bob Sowards in his record-tying twelfth appearance, few will remember the man who quietly—in an era without TikTok, without X, and without YouTube—finished as Low Club Pro more times than anyone in the history of the event. Few will recall a club pro named Bob Boyd.
Robert McLean Boyd was head professional at Florence Country Club, my home club in Florence, South Carolina, from 1986 to 1989. A native of Mount Olive, North Carolina, Boyd played his college golf at the University of Maryland. He tried his hand on the PGA Tour from 1983 to 1984, but after two years of the grind, decided the club life fit him best. Even so, he never lost his competitive drive.
As a club pro, he qualified for the PGA Championship no fewer than seven times, making the cut in three, and each time he made the cut, he finished as low club pro. Lost in the headlines of the Hall Thompson controversy, Boyd’s best finish in the tournament was at Shoal Creek in 1990. He made the cut with back-to-back 74s, and rather than gripe about the rough or condition of the greens like some of the touring pros did, Boyd kept quiet, shot a 71, and at the end of Saturday’s round, found himself in tenth position. Figuring a final round 72 would put him on the leaderboard, he set out Sunday with that goal in mind until a double-bogey at the par-3 8th left him scrambling the rest of the day. He finished with a disappointing 76 that left him at T-19, tied with major champions Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, and Mark O'Meara. Not bad for a guy whose original goal was just to make the cut. "It's just an honor to play, and it's a thrill to do so well," he said afterward. "It could have been better. I was swinging well, but I couldn't score. It's tough out there."
He made the cut again at Southern Hills in 1994, when he finished T-30 along with Wayne Grady, Brad Faxon, and Sam Torrance, and again in 1996 at Valhalla, where he finished T-52. Whenever he made a cut, the result was always the same. He was low club pro every time.
In addition to his eight PGA Championships (one when he played on tour), Boyd qualified for six U.S. Opens, including the 1988 Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. That was the year he asked 15-year-old Paul T. Davis II to caddie for him. “I told him, ‘umm…let me check my schedule. YES!’” remembers Davis. It was the chance of a lifetime. “We had a great time,” said Davis, who went on to play college golf at Wofford. “We spent the week with Mark Calcavecchia and his wife, and I got to meet Ken Green and his caddie. I only knew him as Joe.” As it turns out, Joe’s last name was LaCava. Boyd introduced Paul T. to players like Paul Azinger, Blaine McAllister, and Fred Funk, and to Ping founder Karsten Solheim. They even took in a Red Sox game at Fenway with Roger Maltbie.
Later that summer, Davis got to caddie for Boyd at the World Series of Golf, and when Davis’s playing career at West Florence High School was coming to an end, Boyd helped him compile his golfing resume for college. “He was such a great guy, and he did a lot for me in those years,” said Davis, now a practicing dentist and still a member at FCC. “It was just an incredible time.”
In his competitive career, Boyd tallied 26 individual wins, including the 1988 Club Pro Championship at Pinehurst, N.C. Current Florence Country Club pro Steve Behr was on hand for some of Boyd’s wins and was his roommate that week in Pinehurst. “That’s the biggest win you can have as a club pro,” Behr told the Morning News. “He went about his business and good things happened to him. He is the most impressive ball striker I have been around. I learned a lot. He worked a lot with me on my game and was an impressive player.” Longtime Secession Golf Club pro and Carolinas PGA hall-of-famer Mike Harmon echoed Behr's sentiments. "He was the finest player I ever saw...period," said Harmon, "and I played the Tour for a couple of years. I've played with British Open champions and U.S. Open champions. I've never seen a finer ball-striker in my life."
After he turned fifty, Boyd competed on the European Senior Tour, where he captured the Senior Open of Spain in 2005. He had 15 top-10 finishes in Europe--including a runner-up finish to past British Open champion Ian Woosnam in the Irish Senior Open--and was in the top 30 on the Order of Merit four times.
In addition to his time in Florence, Boyd also directed golf clubs in Pinehurst and Wilmington, N.C.; Rockville, Maryland; and Charleston, Isle of Palms, and Hilton Head in South Carolina.
He was a fixture in the Carolinas golf landscape during his playing days, winning a total of 22 Carolinas PGA events over the course of his career. "His numbers for Carolinas PGA members are so far beyond anybody else, it's not even in the same breath," recalled former CPGA director Ron Schmid. "No one is even close." He won five South Carolina Opens--including three consecutive between 1992-94--along with three North Carolina Opens, four Carolinas Opens, and four Carolinas PGA Championships. He was named Carolinas PGA Golfer of the Year seven times, the last one coming in 2002, and was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2008. Today, the association's Player of the Year award bears his name.
In 2006, Boyd was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia and returned to limited competitive action after receiving a bone marrow transplant. However, when the cancer returned a few years later, and he had a second bone marrow transplant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his body rejected it. After a long and courageous fight, he died February 21, 2011, at the age of 55. “He fought a tough battle for a number of years. I hate it,” Behr said. “I have known him since the early ’80s when I was working at Wild Dunes and played a lot of golf with him. He was a great guy who loved the game and his family.”
That's the legacy that Michael Block is playing for. It’s why club pros will always have a place at the PGA Championship. They are the backbone of the sport. The guys in the trenches. They are the ones managing the facility: running the member-guest, running the pro-shop, giving lessons, and making sure the course is playable for everyone. In essence, they are the ambassadors of the game, dedicated to growing golf at every level. Golf fans often forget that. They will debate the inclusion of club pros, arguing that it diminishes the prestige and significance of a major championship. Some question whether the PGA Championship still deserves to be considered a major championship. Unfortunately, the game of golf does not smile on the dark horses. As Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall once said, "Golf does not have a sustained appetite for underdogs. It pulls for the Goliaths, and whatever stage given to the little guys is meant in small doses." I think that needs to change.
Admittedly, club pros have little chance of ever hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy, but when a Michael Block--or a Bob Boyd--have success, it has a positive impact on the game. “There was just so much excitement in the halls when you saw what Michael did," PGA executive Kris Hart told Golf Week magazine. "As a group we’re like, all right, let’s go. Because there’s criticism, right? There’s 20 PGA of America Golf Professionals in the field. People are always asking, ‘Do they make the cut?’ Well, when someone not just makes a cut but performs and does something amazing like what Michael did, that really elevates things and makes it so much better.”
Bob Boyd did that, too. But more than that, he was a friend, a teacher, a mentor; the kind of guy who goes the extra mile to help everyone--from juniors to adults, from scratch golfers to beginners--enjoy the game. "He represented PGA professionals so well and was such a wonderful player," said Schmid. "He had this tenacity and drive to be successful. There was probably no player we ever had that wanted to play well and do the job better than Bob Boyd." Anyone who knows him would say that he was a competitor--as much in life as he was in golf--but even more importantly, he was a gentleman.
So, as you enjoy your next round of golf, take a moment to thank your local club pro for their dedication and expertise. And as the pros tee it up in Bob Boyd's home state of North Carolina at this week's PGA Championship--whether you're watching in person or on the ESPN or CBS broadcast--raise a glass to the memory of one of the most successful "true" club pros to ever play in the tournament. I know I will.
Here's to you, Bob Boyd! Salut!
