Lifetime achievement laurels for a lifelong golfer

When Concordian Dick Connolly learned he was being honored with the Francis Ouimet Award for Lifelong Contributions to Golf, he found himself thrilled, humbled — and a little confused. 

“Quite frankly, I never thought I was worthy of the award,” he said. “When you’re in the same company as Arnold Palmer and President Bush Senior, that’s some pretty heady company.” 

“Dick is our greatest donor and has been at the forefront of many of the most impactful charitable efforts across the state for the past 40 years,” Alastair Ingram, the director of marketing and communications for the fund, said. 

The award pays tribute to Connolly’s contributions to the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund. Since 1949, the non-profit has disbursed almost $55 million to college-bound students who work at Massachusetts golf courses.

“We provide money for young men and women to go to college that have financial need,” Connolly said. “It basically started as a caddy scholarship, but we’ve expanded.” 

Connolly will be honored on April 21 at the Ouimet Fund Annual Banquet in Boston, where The Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner will interview him. The program also features a student speaker, a young man or woman who has benefited from an Ouimet scholarship.  

“It’s a pretty special night,” Connolly said. 

Humble beginnings

It was Connolly who transformed the annual event from a small gathering to “the largest golf dinner in America.” Ingram explained that Connolly “helped launch our annual banquet in 1997 when he invited his friend Arnold Palmer to receive the inaugural Francis Ouimet Award for Lifelong Contributions to Golf.”

As a youngster, Connolly said he idolized Palmer; as an adult, the two became close friends. 

Connolly says he greatly respects Palmer’s golf accomplishments, but has more admiration for his character. 

“He was obviously a great champion,” he said. “But the way he conducted himself, and the charisma that he had, was mind-boggling. … He was a magnificent man. He never forgot where he came from.”

The award is named for Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur golfer who, in 1913, won the U.S. Open against two of the world’s top players. The match was the subject of the book and movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” 

“That really magnified the growth of golf in this country,” Connolly said. “He brought golf to the common man, and it grew from there.”

Life on the links

A lifetime achievement award is appropriate; Connolly began caddying when he was 8 and has been on golf courses almost all his life. 

“I worked at the Woburn Country Club for 15 years,” he said. “I ended up working on the golf course all through college and graduate school.” 

Connolly attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, thanks in part to an Ouimet scholarship. 

“Once I got through graduate school, I immediately got involved with the fund and have been involved ever since,” Connolly said. “I’ve been president of the fund. I ran the golf tournament, which is a very significant amateur golf tournament in New England for the top amateurs, for 35 years. So I’ve been involved in it for a long time.”

Connolly was captain of the Holy Cross golf team and said he’d played competitive golf into his late 20s. At 84, he still enjoys a round. 

“We belong to the Acton Country Club, which I think is one of the better courses,” he said. 

Connolly and his family have lived in Acton since 1982, but he joked that he might still be a newcomer. 

“The age-old Concordians don’t consider 43 years a long time, but we do,” he said.