Bidding Adieu

After 40 years of working at Boulder Country Club, longtime PGA director of golf Kevin Bolles calling it a career; former CU golfer retiring effective Sept. 1

By Gary Baines – 8/20/2026

Kevin Bolles notes with a smile that he’s only interviewed for one job in his life — and that was as a 14-year-old.

For the record, the interview was for a position in a ski shop in Breckenridge, back in the day when Bolles was a junior skier racer.

That was almost 50 years ago. Bolles is now 63.

We bring this up because Bolles’ time job-hunting is long in his rear-view mirror, and these days he’s on the verge of retirement — essentially from the only employer he’s had since graduating from the University of Colorado.

On Sept. 1, Bolles will call it a career after almost 28 years as the PGA director of golf at Boulder Country Club, where he’s been on the payroll since 1987 — almost 40 years. And, for the record, he did some odds-and-ends work here and there at BCC in 1986, too.

“Something unique that I was actually sharing with our (general manager at BCC) the other day,” Bolles recounted to Colorado Golf Journal in a recent interview outside the golf shop. “I interviewed for one job in my life. I was 14 years old. My brother and I lived up in Breckenridge in a parking lot, in a motorhome. And we had year-round school, we had two months off, and we were ski racers. And so we went and found jobs at the ski shops (renting skis and boots, waxing skis, etc.), and then, for two months, lived in a motor home.

“That was my first interview, and I never interviewed for a job here.”

Indeed, after Bolles wrapped up his two seasons as a University of Colorado golfer (1984-86, finishing seventh in the ’86 Big Eight tournament), fellow former Buff Terry Kahl was running the golf operations at BCC and hired Bolles on a part-time basis in 1987. At the time Bolles was also playing professionally around the country and world, including in South Africa for a while. Kahl’s successor as PGA director of golf, Larry Collins, “inherits me,” as Bolles put it, in 1992 and Bolles became the PGA head professional after year as an assistant pro. Then when Collins left in 1998, BCC was in a transition period as several of its top managers departed at a similar time. So the club president and vice president at the time told Collins he would be the club’s next PGA director of golf — without interviewing Bolles or any other potential candidates.

“So here I am,” Bolles said almost 28 years later.

Kevin Bolles during a recent day at Boulder Country Club, where he started working in 1986.

Though it’s not very common that prominent Colorado PGA professionals spend three, four or more decades working at a single course or club, several such individuals have recently called it a career after doing so.

For a few examples … Kyle Heyen spent about 45 years at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen and Alan Abrams 45 years at Indian Tree Golf Club in Arvada. Meanwhile, Mike Zaremba worked 50 years at courses in and around Pueblo.

And now Bolles is soon joining them in retirement.

*It’s been a great career,” said Bolles, a resident of Louisville who will turn 64 years old in November. “It’s a great club. I’ll miss being here. The void will be seeing people every day — a lot of people. All the staff, all the members. It’s a different world, I think, than a lot of people’s jobs. You have your core handful of people you probably see every day. But I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of people. So that’ll be interesting then to see how that goes.

“(Now) you get to look back and go, ‘Wow, I did this.’ You’re just doing your job, making it through life normally, but it’s nice to look back and feel accomplished.”

One of the biggest weeks of the year at Boulder Country Club is its member-guest, the Flatirons Frolics, also known simply as the Frolics. Bolles noted that he first worked the Frolics in 1987 — and has been on hand for every one since — making this summer’s edition No. 40 straight for him.

In ’87, “I was just a kid running around doing whatever I was told to do,” he said. “And I never missed one. So that was pretty neat to look back and go, ‘I didn’t miss a one.’”

So does he take some pride in pretty much working his entire adult professional life at one place?

“Yeah, it’s neat,” Bolles said. “I don’t know any other way, so I’m glad I got to appreciate it this way. I’d rather have it this way than moving every five years somewhere. Hopefully, I’ll be remembered. That would be nice.”

In a related matter, the top golf staff at BCC is somewhat unique in that it’s largely stayed intact for more than two decades. Terra Shehee, the PGA/LPGA head golf professional, has served in that role since 1999 for all but a brief time — when she took a position with the same title at The Ranch Country Club in late 2019. And Thomas Noonan has been a PGA assistant professional at BCC since 2002.

“I’m kind of amazed how long some staff members have stayed with me,” Bolles said. “Just the quality of people that we attract, I’ve been blessed with really good staff, nice people. . … I guarantee there’s not a club (in Colorado) that has that much (continuous, combined) tenure on its staff. That’s not common — not common at all.”

Indeed, that brings to mind rare situations like at Indian Tree, where Vic Kline and Abrams — then Abrams and Rudy Castaneda — long worked together on the golf team.

Though Bolles’ successor as PGA director of golf at BCC hasn’t been determined, Shehee is a natural candidate. Bolles said Shehee was his first hire upon becoming director of golf.

“When I sat down and thought, ‘What do I want?’ I wanted a woman pro,” he said. “The golf professional business doesn’t have enough. And we stayed together the whole time (other than her brief stint at The Ranch).”

Looking ahead, “I hope she gets (the director of golf position at BCC),” Bolles said. “I mean, I’m in her camp.  … She is completely talented. In many ways, she’d probably do things a lot better than me.”

Just after retiring, Bolles plans to compete in the Inspirato Colorado Senior Open.

Shehee is competing at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in Ann Arbor, Mich., this week after qualifying for the event for the first time. Asked before the competition if she has any memories of Bolles that particularly stand out from over the years, Shehee went back to the beginning.

The “first memory was at the PGA merchandise show in 1999,” Shehee noted in an email. “That’s where he yelled across one of the booths and asked if I’d come work for him. He had just become the Director of Golf. Here we are 27 years later. I will forever be thankful for the opportunity.

“Also, skiing at Copper (Mountain) and the many golf rounds we have played together are always fun and memorable.”

During Bolles’ time as PGA director of golf at Boulder Country Club, three charitable organizations the club has supported have been particularly fulfilling from his perspective:

— The Evans Scholarship, a full-tuition and housing scholarship awarded to high-achieving caddies to attend universities around the country, including CU. During Bolles’ time as director of golf, 10 caddies from the club have been awarded Evans Scholarships to CU, with Evans Scholar alums and BCC members Bob Webster and Jeremy Stroiman playing pivotal roles in the effort.

— BCC’s International tournament, a member event started during Collins’ days as director of golf in which proceeds of roughly $10,000 annually are given to local community charities.

— In the last dozen years, BCC has hosted another golf event, Patriots Day, that supports U.S. military veterans from CU through Colorado Veterans Support. Bolles himself serves on the board of trustees for CVS. The event’s proceeds have helped endow a scholarship at CU that has a principle balance of more than $1 million.

“You start to look back at those things, and you go, ‘Wow, that’s kind of cool,’” Bolles said of the club’s efforts supporting those charities.

Also over those years when Bolles served as director of golf, Boulder Country Club hosted the 2017 men’s Pac-12 golf championships; the 1999 women’s Big 12 championships; the CGA Amateur in 2006, 2010 and 2016; the CGA Women’s Amateur in 2002 and 2021; and a girls state high school tournament, among others. Interestingly, some of those tournament produced some very notable champions as Wyndham Clark (now owner of two U.S. Open titles) prevailed in both the 2010 CGA Amateur and the 2017 Pac-12 meet, and Colin Prater won the first of his six open-age state amateurs in 2016.

Bolles alongside the BCC clock that stands near the ninth green and first tee.

Looking forward — at least in the near-term — Bolles has a couple of things on the agenda for the initial part of his retirement. For the first time in years, he plans to compete in the Inspirato Colorado Senior Open, set for Sept. 2-4 at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in northeast Denver.

Then almost immediately thereafter, Bolles will drive up to Missoula, Mont., to join his wife of 25 years, Paulette (a program coordinator at The Nature Conservancy), who will already be there. Two of their kids live in Missouri and the youngest of them, Hayden, is a video coordinator for the University of Montana, so Kevin will be attending a few Grizzlie football games. His in-laws own a cabin in the area, so some fishing also likely will be on the to-do list, along with hikes with the dog. “I hope I don’t get taken down by a bear,” he said with a smile.

Bolles is also considering giving some golf lessons to low-income golfers at Double Arrow Golf Course in Seeley Lake, Mont. He might also do some instruction in connection with a nearby luxury resort. Those are just some ideas at this point, and much of this is to be determined, including the length of the Bolles’ stay, which could last a month — or more.

“However long. I don’t know,” Kevin said with a certain look of anticipation about him.

Indeed, there won’t be any rush at that point.

After decades of seldom having work-free weekends to look forward to — and of always needing to stay on top of emails and text messages and the technological demand of the job — that will be a welcome change of pace.