One of the greatest players in Connecticut golf history, Roy Pace enters the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame in 2014 in the category of “Distinguished Golf Achievement.”
Pace played the PGA Tour for more than ten years from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. He competed in a total of 178 PGA Tour events, made 163 cuts, and recorded fifteen top-10 finishes. In 1971 he won the Magnolia Classic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Magnolia was played opposite the Masters each year and featured the best players in the world who were not otherwise eligible for Augusta. In addition to Pace, past winners include Craig Stadler and Payne Stewart.
Pace played college golf at Louisiana Tech University where he won the Gulf States individual title three times. He visited Connecticut often during his time on the PGA Tour, and worked as the Assistant Professional at one of Connecticut’s most historic and prestigious clubs, Wee Burn Country Club in Darien in 1966 and 1967. Pace was a back-to-back winner of the Connecticut Open in 1966 at Tumble Brook Country Club, and in 1967 at the Golf Club of Avon. He also won the Westchester (N.Y.) Open in 1967.
In 1976 Pace began a twenty-three year career as the Head Golf Professional at Wee Burn Country Club. At Wee Burn, Pace further immersed himself into teaching the game to others and continued to earn national and regional acclaim. A consummate head professional, more than twenty of his assistants have become head professionals at golf facilities in the United States.
Longtime Wee Burn member, Rich Duffy described Pace as “an excellent and most worthy candidate for the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame. Roy has been a tremendous player and teacher for his entire career, but more importantly, Roy and his wife Sandy are just great people.”
While at Wee Burn, Pace received the Bill Strausbaugh Employment Award in 1983 and 1984, and in 1987, Pace was named the Metropolitan PGA Golf Professional of the Year. The following year in 1988, Pace earned the Metropolitan PGA Teacher of the Year award.
Pace’s career in Connecticut and in particular his span at Wee Burn from 1976 through 1999, established his national reputation as an energetic and tireless teacher with an unrivaled passion for the game. He moved back to his hometown of Longview, Texas after his time in Darien and quickly made his mark within the North and East Texas PGA Sections. For the past twenty-five years Pace has also partnered with top-100 teacher, Ted Sheftic in directing the Pace Sheftic Golf School in Vero Beach, Florida.
Presently co-owner of the Alpine Target Golf Center in Longview, Pace has continued to garner recognition and awards for his teaching prowess. For five consecutive years, from 2004 through 2008 he was named a “Top-50 Instructor in America” by Golf Range Magazine, and in 2001 and again in 2011 he was named the East Texas PGA Teacher of the Year.
In recent years, much of Pace’s work has centered around young golfers. He was named a Top-50 US Kids Instructor in 2007, and from 2006 through 2011 he received three Junior Leader Awards from the PGA Section. In 2009, Pace established the First Tee of Piney Woods in Longview and continues to serve as president of the chapter.
About his most recent accomplishment and award Pace said, “It is a great honor for me to be inducted into the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame. I will always have fond memories of Connecticut. The Connecticut Opens, my years as golf professional at Wee Burn Country Club and my association with the CSGA all have their own stories that I will never forget. Our common ground of loving the game of golf makes this honor even better to me.”
At the age of 73, former PGA Tour player and longtime Wee Burn head professional Roy Pace still spends most of his day giving golf lessons, and sharing with his students a lifetime of unique knowledge and love of the game.
