Mr. President: The winding career path of Arizona's Don Rea, president of the PGA of America.

How do you go from being a minor league baseball umpire and part-time UPS driver to becoming the 44th president of the PGA of America? Ask Don Rea. He completed that improbable journey last November. And no, he can’t believe it either.

Rea, who operates Augusta Ranch Golf Club, a par-61 public golf course in Mesa, started on that circuitous path in Scottsdale. “My father was a big baseball fan who traveled there annually for spring training,” said the Las Vegas native. “He always stayed at Woolley’s Petite Suites, and that’s where all of the umpires stayed, so he got to know many of them.”

“When I was in the middle of my junior year studying aerospace engineering at San Diego State, he insisted I come visit him, so I spent a week hearing all of the umpire’s stories. Jim Evans and Ted Hendry were starting an umpire school at the old Compadre Stadium in Chandler. My dad said ‘You gotta go to it.’ I wanted to get my degree, but he said, ‘You only live once and you can always go back to college.’ Famous last words. I went to umpire school the next year and started working in the minor leagues around the country. And I never got that degree.”

A Pivot to Golf

Rea accumulated plenty of memorable experiences — including being bit on the chin by manager Lee Elia during one intense argument — but more importantly, met his wife Karen, an Arizona native, while working spring training games in Scottsdale.

Nine years into the job though, Rea still had not received the coveted call up to the major leagues. That’s when golf changed his life. A few years earlier, during an off-season job as a UPS driver, the last stop on his route was Riverview Golf Course in Mesa (which closed in 2012 and became the site of the Chicago Cubs minor league complex).

“That’s where I met Jim Mooney, who was the head pro and general manager there, and he was so nice to me,” said Rea. “Sometimes I would get done with my deliveries and have an hour with nothing to do. Jim said, ‘Why don’t you hit balls here?’ He would let me use his new Beryllium PING clubs. I always liked golf, so eventually I asked him, ‘How do you get in the golf business?’ He said, ‘You’ve got to be a member of the PGA.’ And I was like, all right. Away I went.”

By 1999, Rea had left umpiring and started working full-time at the then brand-new Augusta Ranch as an outside services attendant, cleaning clubs and washing carts alongside teenagers half his age.

“They called me ‘River,’ as in ‘Ol’ Man River,” he recalled. “Sean Ferris (now tournament director at Desert Mountain Club) was my first boss.” He quickly moved into the golf shop and was then promoted to general manager at Eagle Mountain Golf Club in Fountain Hills, a facility run by the same owners as Augusta Ranch.

“I could never just teach for 50 hours a week, and I couldn’t sit in a cubicle and pay invoices for 50 hours a week, either,” he said. But being a general manager was perfect. “I would walk around the course and it’s like you own a restaurant, you own a retail shop. You’ve got this landscaping company. You get to make flyers, you get to coach and teach. You get to fix golf clubs if you want. I thought, this is the greatest job ever. You could do all these different things in one day. That sounded exciting to me. And you’re at a golf course! If I want to pull into a parking lot at my job, the parking lot at a golf course isn’t too bad.”

When Eagle Mountain was sold in 2007, a course management company was going to run Augusta Ranch. Instead, Rea started his own company to run it and landed that gig. A year later, Augusta Ranch was being sold, and Rea partnered with a fellow former umpire who worked at an equity company to buy the course. A decade later, the course was sold to the local HOA, which then leased the facility to Rea.

He proceeded to put his experience in the minor leagues to good use. “I used to see all the crazy promotions teams would do around the country, so I thought, ‘Why can’t we do that in golf?’” he said. That led to a cornhole league in the parking lot, movie night on the driving range, a fishing/golf tournament and night golf events, among other ideas. In November 2022, 21 Toptracer bays were installed on the range, creating an instant hit in both participation and revenue. “That’s the best thing we’ve done,” he said. “It’s inviting people to the game in a very relaxed way because it’s not golf to them. They’re just hitting balls with friends. But I’m planting a seed that they don’t know and I’ll continue watering that until they become a golfer.”

For The Love Of The Game

Rea will have his hands full during his two-year term as PGA president, notably with the Ryder Cup this September at Bethpage Black in New York, as well as industry issues — especially the planned rollback of the golf ball — that will impact his 31,000 members. “I take a lot of solace in the fact that any decision we make, nobody loves golf more than a PGA

Professional because none of us gets super rich doing it,” he said. “We just do it because we love the game.”

And Rea, who previously served as PGA of America secretary and vice president, is a firm believer in the impact the game can provide in return. “Golf is good for the economy. It’s good for the environment. It’s actually good for you. You can build relationships that go across generations. And then obviously there’s all the basics of golf and rules and integrity. But my three main priorities as president are our PGA Coach program, mentoring the next generation of PGA Professionals and legislative advocacy for the industry.”

While Arizona is known for the 5 Cs (Cotton, Cattle, Climate, Copper, Citrus), Rea, who serves on the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association Board of Directors, thinks that motto needs a sixth C: Courses. “I really do, because the golf courses are doing a lot for the state of Arizona. When I was president of the Southwest PGA Section, I used to say that I truly believe a four-day golf trip to Arizona turns into a four-month winter stay, which turns into a forever resident of the state, and that’s a good thing to have.”

While he’s far too busy these days to reflect on the unusual journey that led him to the peak of his profession, Rea feels more than ready to take on all that it brings.

“It’s crazy. I never would have guessed this would happen. I mean, it’s not like I aspired to be the president of the PGA. But I know I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I know it.”