A longtime head pro at a Florida country club will end his 44-year tenure at the end of the month. It began as a part-time gig in December of 1978.“I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. It just turned out very nice,” says Mike Boss, whose four-plus decades at the Ormond Beach (Fla.) club — more than 40 of them as head pro — come to a close this month. “One year I just stayed down here,” Bossy says. “Worked for Dave Mabry, who was the pro here at the time and a friend from Buffalo…Been here ever since.”
A longtime head pro at a Florida country club will end his 44-year tenure at the end of the month, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
It began as a part-time gig in December of 1978.
“I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. It just turned out very nice,” says Mike Boss, whose four-plus decades at Ormond Beach’s (Fla.) Riviera Country Club — more than 40 of them as head pro — come to a close at the end of December.
Originally, it was the weather that brought “Bossy” to town at age 23, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. He’s from Buffalo, after all.
“I didn’t really have a job down here,” he says. “I’d come down and play the winter tour. I’d been working at a course up north that would close in the winter. One year I just stayed down here. Worked for Dave Mabry, who was the pro here at the time and a friend from Buffalo.
“Been here ever since.”
“Here” was usually the pro shop counter, but there were many hours spent in his tiny office just off the shop floor, and out at the big scoreboard, tallying results of the most recent club tournament, or the club’s cozy lounge for some of the club’s famous post-round camaraderie, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
“Whether it was the ladies association, a men’s group, a big event…what stands out to me was Bossy’s attention to detail,” says Eric Meyers, who owns Riviera with his wife Charlotte — Meyers’ dad and uncle bought the course in 1953. “It’s just detail, all the time. Things you might never see, it just gets done.”
Ryan Meyers, Riviera’s third-generation manager, feels the club’s great reputation among local golfers is due in large part to Bossy, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
“I think the reason my dad has been so successful is because he had a Bossy here,” Ryan Meyers says. “He didn’t have to worry about starters, the cart guys, the pro shop, tournaments. Bossy took care of all that.
“And his people skills…it was always second nature to him to take care of people, as well as remembering everybody’s name.”
That goes for golfers who might visit just one week each year, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. However . . .
“I find myself, at 67 years of age, having to cheat a little bit, looking for ways to remember names now,” Boss says.
While many public courses, both locally and nationally, have faced stout headwinds over the years — some insurmountable — Riviera has been a true outlier, a family-run operation with a strong membership (and waiting list) as well as a steady flow of walk-up customers from far and wide, , The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
“Unfortunately, there’s not many clubs like Riviera left,” says Rod Perry, head pro at Crane Lakes in Port Orange. “Riviera has improved in many ways over the years, but in many ways it’s the same.”
Perry points to the pro shop in assigning much of the credit.
“I wouldn’t say Bossy is the face of Riviera, but he’s epitomized the culture of Riviera,” he says. “When we were kids, we didn’t know what we were doing. And he knew we didn’t know what we were doing. But he helped us in every way possible.
“My mother, who hasn’t seen him in 20 years, still speaks highly of him. Whenever someone mentions Riviera, she’ll say, ‘How’s Bossy doing?’ He’s just always been a friendly face to all of us.”
Come the new year, it’ll be an adjustment for the legion of Riviera regulars and visitors alike, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. The guy who was always there won’t be there, and after all these years, it’s sure to be an adjustment for him, too.
“Not sure what I’m gonna do,” Boss says. “It’s been a while, you know. I haven’t played golf for quite some time, but I have a new granddaughter and maybe she’ll get interested in the game and I can help her out.
“I know I’ll miss the people here. I really will.”
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