Dolan and his brother Billy created the industry’s oldest golf car brand after witnessing Augusta National Golf Club co-founder Bobby Jones ride around in a three-wheeled cart during the 1954 Masters Tournament. Dolan was 90 years old.
B.F. “Bev” Dolan, a co-founder of E-Z-GO and a pioneer of the modern golf car industry, died February 20 in North Palm Beach, Fla. He was 90, the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle reported.
Dolan and his brother Billy created the industry’s oldest golf car brand after witnessing Augusta National Golf Club co-founder Bobby Jones ride around in a three-wheeled cart during the 1954 Masters Tournament, the Chronicle reported.
Dolan appeared in Augusta last April as one of the honorees at the Augusta Mayor’s Masters Reception. “You’re going to see E-Z-GO really grow into one of our major manufacturers here in Augusta,” Dolan said at the event. “I am very proud of E-Z-GO and what it has stood for in this community.”
Dolan’s son, Frank, said he died at St. Mary’s Medical Center after suffering a stroke. He said his father had been driving up until Thanksgiving before his health began to deteriorate. “He had a good life and a good run and no regrets,” Dolan said.
Funeral arrangements are still pending but the family is planning internment at Augusta’s Westover Cemetery on February 27. Frank Dolan said his father could talk to an aerospace engineer about the wing of an airplane as easily as he could a 4-year-old about his tennis shoes, the Chronicle reported.
“When he was talking to you, he had a way of making you feel like you were the only one in the room,” Dolan said.
The mild-mannered Augusta native helped transform what was once considered a novelty item to standard equipment on golf courses worldwide. “The true answer is that nobody really foresaw what the golf car would grow into,” Dolan told The Augusta Chronicle during a 2002 interview. “We were neophytes in a neophyte business.”
Dolan orchestrated E-Z-GO’s sale to Rhode Island-based Textron in 1960 and continued running the golf vehicle company for all but three years until 1979, when Textron hired him as corporate president. Dolan retired as chairman of the company in 1991, the Chronicle reported.
Kevin Holleran, president and CEO of Textron’s Industrial Segment and Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., said in a statement that “Bev will live on through his countless contributions to golf, to his hometown and to the company he founded and loved.
“Our hearts are heavy today,” Holleran said. “Bev Dolan’s vision and leadership built a brand, product and company that transformed the entire golf industry and made Augusta the golf-car capital of the world. We will keep his legacy alive.”
Dolan’s brother Billy died in 1988. The two first began building the vehicles by hand at an east Augusta machine shop before moving to a larger facility in Grovetown, Ga., where the company’s main manufacturing facility and corporate offices are still located, the Chronicle reported.
Bev Dolan received the Professional Golfers Association’s Ernie Sabayrac Award in 2012 for lifetime contributions to the golf industry. “Bev Dolan’s commitment to excellence resulted in one of the remarkable success stories in the business of golf,” PGA of America President Ted Bishop said at the time. “Bev’s vision for a piece of equipment that we take for granted today had a monumental impact upon the golf experience.”
Born in Augusta, Dolan graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Georgia in 1952 before serving two years in the U.S. Army. He was still stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C., when he and Billy hatched the idea for a golf-car company, the Chronicle reported.
Dolan and his widow, Ada Alice, are survived by sons Frank Dolan of Augusta and William Dolan of Charlotte, N.C. Frank Dolan said his father supported numerous charities and several down-on-their-luck individuals anonymously, the Chronicle reported.
“He was very much a positive people-person,” Dolan said. “He was a big benefactor of the underdog.”
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