PGA Magazine : June 2007 : PGA Profile

Growing the Game With a Roll of the Dice: With the GOLO game he created and his support of Special Olympics, PGA Professional Pat Shea is giving something back to the sport of golf

June 2007; By Roger Graves, Senior Writer

PGA Professional Patrick Shea is a big believer in giving back to golf and growing the game. The 39-year-old PGA Professional at Santa Clara Golf & Tennis Club in the Northern California PGA Section takes tremendous pride in his 14 years of work with Special Olympics athletes, teaching junior and adult golfers, and raising more than $300,000 through a variety of charity events.

But Shea’s most creative program to grow the game was inventing a game.

Shea, who was elected to PGA membership in 1999, was playing standard dice games with his golf colleagues in an Irish pub in Los Gatos, Calif., in the summer of 1998 when a light bulb went off in his head. He was intrigued by the prospect of playing golf with dice, so he placed nine standard six-sided dice in a cup and started swinging, er, rolling. A few minutes later, Shea had created the basic rules of GOLO (pronounced Go-Low, which is the objective of every golfer). Friends and family loved the game, and it wasn’t long before bars and golf emporiums throughout Silicon Valley and the Bay Area demanded their own GOLO games.

The golf dice game became so popular that Shea and two friends founded the company Front9 in January of 1999, and the game was released to the public a year later. Today, more than 400,000 GOLO games have been sold, and Shea has just introduced a similar dice game for auto-racing enthusiasts called GO500. So how has introducing a golf-oriented dice game succeeded in growing the game?

“I’ve been introducing the dice game to so many non-golfers that it has become a tremendous tool to get new golfers interested in the game,” says Shea. “GOLO teaches people the basics of golf in a simple way. Where else can you find a tool that teaches the basics of birdies, pars, bogeys and eagles, and about par-3s, par-4s and par-5s, and a little about golf strategy in five or 10 minutes? Even if a man or woman has never played golf before, they can learn how to play GOLO in a few minutes.”

Shea and GOLO have teamed up with pre-teen rap/hip-hop artist and golfer Lil’ Jordan to spread the gospel of golf to juniors and their parents nationwide. Lil’ Jordan, who played in the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic, gives autographed custom GOLO games to his fans at every show. Inside each game are instructions that direct fans to www.PlayGolfAmerica.com, the Play Golf America Web site that educates new golfers on how they can sign up for programs and hit a real golf ball.

But Shea’s commitment to growing the game is not left to a roll of the dice. In addition to supporting the Northern California PGA Foundation and its grow the game efforts, Shea runs his family’s Silverado Golf Classic, a 54-hole tournament that has raised more than $250,000 for area charities in the past 10 years. Perhaps just as dear to the PGA Professional’s heart is working with Special Olympics athletes during the past 14 years. The Special Olympics golf program Shea developed in Santa Clara County has become a model for programs in Stanford and San Francisco, with some 250 Special Olympics golfers from the three organizations meeting in a final tournament at the end of the season.

“That old saying that I’m getting more out of it than I’m giving is certainly applicable to working with the Special Olympics athletes,” assures Shea, whose father, Mike, instilled a strong sense of giving by taking his son to the old Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach and to soup kitchens to volunteer beginning when Pat was only six years old. “Working with the Special Olympians really helps you put life and everything we do into perspective. Honestly, I learn more teaching that golf class and get more from those special athletes and their parents than I give. It is pure joy when they hit the golf ball and you’re able to see the look of accomplishment on their faces. It definitely all comes back to my parents. They made a commitment to make a difference in the community years ago at their Silverado fund-raiser, and I’ve been fortunate to maintain that perspective.”

But growing the game by inventing a game? That’s Pat Shea’s creative way of giving back to a game that has shaped his life.