When golfers talk about the great professionals from Colorado, many names are bandied about. But all lists of our state’s finest should include Robert M. Hold.
Born April 7, 1928 in Denver, Hold grew up and took to golf like bees to honey. Within 11 years of graduating from West High School in 1946, he got his first head professional position at Rolling Hills Country Club in Golden. He would stay there nine years, the first of four head pro positions. He also worked in 1967 as golf manager at Kennedy Golf Course in Denver, and from 1967-1984 as head pro at Paradise Valley Country Club in Denver (which became Candlewood Country Club in 1982). He was a lifetime PGA member when he passed away in 1993, leaving behind a son, Robert Hold Jr., and a daughter, Samantha Borelli.
Although Hold was regarded as an outstanding teacher and involved himself with junior golf programs, it was as a player that he made a name for himself. He won every major championship in the area except the Colorado Open. He qualified for the United States Open (1967, ’70 and ‘71) and PGA Championship (1964, ‘66 and ‘70), won three Colorado Section PGA titles and was the Section’s player of the year seven times in a nine-year span. That’s an accomplishment that no one else has come close to matching.
Hold held his own against the best players of his generation, men such as Bill Bisdorf, Warren Smith and Paul McMullen—all of whom preceded him into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. Hold ably rounds out that foursome.
