The 77-year-old Tucson Open, by any name, is a survivor like few others in American professional sports.
It was discontinued in 1954, doomed, it seemed, knocked off the PGA Tour and replaced by the $3,000 Laredo Open, which was so homespun that it used rubber mats rather than grass tee boxes.
Through a steady financial crisis of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and daunting challenges of the early 2000s, today’s ongoing Cologuard Classic has been preceded by, in order:
The Victory Bond Tucson Open.
Home of the Sun Invitational.
Ford Mustang Tucson Open.
Dean Martin Tucson Open.
Joe Garagiola Tucson Open.
Seiko Tucson Match Play Championship.
Northern Telecom Tucson Open.
Nortel Open.
Tucson Chrysler Classic.
Touchdown Energy Tucson Open.
WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
When the PGA Tour Champions event dispenses $1.7 million to this week’s professionals, what began as a $5,000 event at the less-than-palatial El Rio Country Club in 1945 will have paid $122 million in prize money.
That’ll buy a few Mustangs.
It’s almost indisputable that the Tucson Open would have collapsed in the mid-60s had not a visionary group of 32 Tucson businessmen formed the Conquistadores and rescued Tucson’s stop on the pro golf tour from the financially-challenged Tucson Golf Association.
The Conquistadores celebrated their 60th anniversary Friday evening at the Omni Tucson National Resort, and you might imagine it was a special moment when Fred Boice, one of three surviving members from that original group of 32, walked into the room.
Boice, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Arivaca, is the living spirit of the Conquistadores — work first, charitable service second, golf later. Prominent Tucson auto dealer Jim Click got his start in the Conquistadores 50 years ago this month, helping to park cars at Tucson National.
When Boice was invited to attend the Conquistadores’ Friday lunch meeting with Tucson mayor Regina Romero, he asked what his work assignment would be this weekend at the Cologuard Classic.
“Everyone wants to work at the driving range,’’ Boice said with a laugh. “I’ve done any and all work assignments through the years; I do what no one else wants to do, which generally means I’m sitting behind a desk at the front door.’’
Boice was the inaugural chairman of the Conquistadores’ first PGA Tour event, 1966, when it took on the responsibility of not only keeping its spot on the PGA Tour calendar, but also raising enough money to draw the interest of future Tucson Open champions Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson.
Boice was at the wheel when the Tucson Open gained its first national TV coverage in ’66, raising the purse from $46,000 to $60,000 to make it competitive with the PGA Tour’s prestigious West Coast tour events in Pebble Beach, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Phoenix.
“There were 32 of us then,’’ he remembers. “Now there are close to 200. After my year as chairman, I parked cars in Year 2. There is no elitism; we all pitch in and are involved in every capacity.
“It’s almost hard to believe it’s been able to maintain itself all these years.’’
The Conquistadores rescued a floundering golf event that had moved from El Rio to Forty-Niner Country Club and finally to the grand Tucson National course in what was then remote northwest edge of Tucson.
Prize money grew from $60,000 to $200,000 in the Conquistadores’ first decade and continued to climb past $1 million in 1984, when it staged a historic reunion of match play to the PGA Tour, providing $708,000 for PGA Tour regulars and $300,000 for the Senior Tour qualifiers.
The Tour’s unofficial fifth major for three years was played at Randolph North, a municipal course. But somehow the Conquistadores made it seem like the Big Time.
Prize money soared to $8 million in 2008, when Tiger Woods won the WGC-Accenture Match Play championship at The Gallery, South Course. That was Big Time in every way.
Boice is joined by Tucson auto dealer Buck O’Rielly and real estate broker Chuck Pettis as the three surviving members of the historic 1962 creation of the Conquistadores. They’ve seen it all: “Arnie’s Army” marching up the 18th fairway, as Palmer won $12,000 in 1967; Johnny Miller’s three straight championships, 1974-76; Phil Mickelson, then an Arizona State junior, winning his first PGA Tour event in 1991.
The Conquistadores’ impact stretched far beyond Tucson.
Over 60 years, they’ve bestowed honorary Conquistadores helmets to former president Gerald Ford, music superstars John Denver, Dean Martin and Vince Gill, legendary entertainer Bob Hope, baseball Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez and today’s Voice of the PGA Tour, Sabino High School and UA graduate Dan Hicks of NBC.
Today, the Tucson Open is the eighth-oldest continuous event under the PGA Tour umbrella. And, yes, it outlasted the Laredo Open.
Boice is eager to do more than celebrate the Conquistadores’ 60th anniversary this weekend. His longtime friend and golf partner, Ed Updegraff, the greatest amateur golfer in Arizona history, will turn 100 on Monday at his home in SaddleBrooke Ranch.
One of the nine Tucson Opens that Updegraff played between 1958-70 was the 1966 event at which Boice was Conquistadores’ chairman.
“When it’s all said and done,” said Boice, “Ed is doing remarkably well.”
The same could be said of the Conquistadores and their first chairman.
