Starting a Unique Journey Toward the Game of Golf
The Don Rea Jr. story starts in Los Angeles, California, in 1967. That’s where Don Rea Sr. and his wife, Teri Ann, welcomed their first son at Los Angeles Memorial Hospital on March 21.
The family moved from its home in El Monte, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, when Don Jr. was a toddler. Don Sr. took a job in the gaming industry, and the Rea family put down roots in the desert. It was there the family added a second son, Erik, and the two Rea brothers remain close friends and golf partners to this day. Erik Rea is a deputy at the North Las Vegas Jail.
“We lived on the edge of town, which over time came to be the middle of town,” Rea says. “In two years, the PGA of America Annual Meeting will be at Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, which is very close to where we lived and where I graduated from Bonanza High School – it used to be wide open desert where we’d go out and ride motorcycles.”
Rea was an athlete from the start, though golf was never a competitive sport for him. His father introduced him to the game at age 10, taking him out to play and teaching him the basics while gifting him a copy of “The Five Fundamentals of Golf” by Ben Hogan. Rea started playing more often in high school as his friends took up the game, though he was busy as a varsity letter-winner in baseball, tennis and soccer, earning honors as Scholar Athlete of the Year at Bonanza as a senior in 1985.
Rea was an accomplished centerfielder and first baseman on the baseball field, and he was fortunate the skills translated to golf.
“I didn’t play competitively, but my dad and that Hogan book gave me a great foundation in golf,” Rea says. “I really took to it. There were only maybe a couple of rounds at the beginning that I didn’t break 100. It became a fun thing to do with my family and friends, and the seeds had been planted.”
Rea also saw the seeds of the future being planted in the mid-1980s as personal computers became more commonplace. He became proficient in writing code on the then-new Apple IIe computer, learning languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, and he decided to study computer engineering at San Diego State University in California.
As a student, Rea took a job at a relatively new chain of home improvement stores called Home Depot. At the time there were only five Home Depot locations across the country, and the San Diego store was the first to do more than $1 million in business in a week. Company founders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank spent time at the location to learn best practices that helped them grow the brand to more than 2,300 stores today.
Rea used the experience to soak up business skills thanks to the culture Marcus and Blank created. The company had employees read books like “One Minute Manager” and “Raving Fans”, which Rea cites as major influences on his managerial style. To this day, Augusta Ranch employees are given a copy of “Raving Fans” and a 10-question quiz on the book after they’re hired.
Using these lessons, Rea worked his way up to manager of the lumber department and was considering leaving school to work full-time for Home Depot. That’s when life threw him a curveball.
Becoming a Man in Blue
Around his 22nd birthday, Rea’s father invited him to Arizona for a week during baseball spring training to watch some games and relax during SDSU’s spring break. Rea met a few professional umpires in town for Cactus League games and started spending time with them.
“All the umpires stayed at the same hotel, and all the games were played during the day, so by 5 or 6 the hotel pool and bar would be a bunch of umpires hanging out and talking baseball, which I of course loved to do,” Rea remembers. “I thought it was fascinating, and a couple of the umpires were talking about starting a school to certify umpires. I’d never thought about becoming an ump, but my dad encouraged me to take some time off from college and give it a try.”
The following January saw Rea enroll in the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, where he excelled and was invited to a second education session run by Major League Baseball. By the end of the month, Rea was offered a full-time job as a minor league umpire. That put an end to his college education and his time at Home Depot, but started a new chapter in his life that would eventually lead to his golf career.
Like baseball players, umpires start in the low minor leagues and learn their craft while traveling the country and moving up to new leagues when they’re ready. For Rea, that started with a stint in the Pioneer League with teams in Montana, Idaho, Utah and Medicine Hat, Canada. Subsequent years saw him umpire in the California League, Florida State League, Eastern League and eventually the AAA International League and Pacific Coast League, just one step from the big leagues.
Also like baseball players, umpires at the minor league level don’t make much money. So when the off-season came, Rea found a steady and lucrative job driving a delivery van for UPS. By 1997 Rea had moved from his home base of Las Vegas to Arizona to be closer to his eventual wife, Karen, and his UPS route there included a nine-hole golf facility in Mesa called Riverview Golf Course.
Rea got to know PGA of America Head Professional Jim Mooney at Riverview, and the two struck up a friendship. Sometimes Rea would have spare time between his morning deliveries and afternoon pickups for UPS, and Mooney would let Rea borrow his clubs to practice on the range.
“Jim was just the consummate PGA of America Member, and he was super nice to me,” Rea remembers. “I made deliveries there every day, and he looked like he loved his job, and all the golfers loved him. It got me thinking.”
What Mooney didn’t know was that Rea was at a career crossroads. After eight years of barnstorming minor league ballparks across the country, he was on the cusp of making the big leagues. But the final step was the toughest, and there was no guarantee how many more years might go by before there was an opening at the MLB level.
“I was thinking I needed to set a time limit on umpiring and how long I would wait at the AAA level, so a Plan B was on my mind,” Rea says. “One day I saw Jim and asked him, ‘How do I learn to do what you do?’ He said, ‘You have to become a PGA Member, and I can show you how.’ He gave me a number for the Southwest PGA Section, and they sent me a videotape explaining the steps to becoming a PGA of America Member – there was no website to visit in those days.”
Rea learned about the Playing Ability Test (PAT) and decided if he could pass it, he’d take a chance on becoming a PGA of America Golf Professional. So he headed back out on the road for another summer of umpiring minor league games. This time, however, he took his golf clubs and spent afternoons and off-days honing his game. In the fall of 1998, he was ready to give it a shot.
“I showed up at Cave Creek Golf Club in Phoenix to take the PAT, and it was the first tournament I’d ever played in – I’d never played in an event where I needed to putt everything out or turn in a scorecard,” Rea says. “I was so nervous about not knowing the Rules, and I felt so out of my element. Everyone else had their names on their golf bags, and they were dressed to the nines with FootJoy Classics golf shoes.
“My playing partners asked what club I worked at, and I was like, “I’m just a baseball umpire. But I think it’d be cool to be a golf professional and be in this business.’ They were already assistants at big clubs, and there I am playing with them.”
Against all odds, Rea was one of four players to pass the PAT that day, beating the target score of 151 by two strokes by shooting 73-76 – including making a six-foot putt for double bogey on his final hole.
“I didn’t realize what passing the PAT meant to me until I got to the last hole and realized how close I was,” Rea says. “Then I thought, ‘OK, just don’t mess this hole up.’ And, of course, I did, but I still managed to get through.”
Rea now had an opportunity to pursue his PGA of America Membership. First, however, he called Branch Rickey III – great grandson of the legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey and president of the Pacific Coast League – to get his advice.
“I told him I was thinking about getting into the golf business and that I really loved the idea, but I wasn’t sure if I should go for it because I’d put so much time into baseball,” Rea says. “I was thinking of taking a year off from baseball to see what golf was like, and Branch told me I should go all in and commit to golf if I thought it was a good opportunity. He was right, because there was no guarantee I was ever going to get the call to the big leagues.
“Around that same time, UPS called and offered me a full-time, year-round job – a union job with a Monday-Friday schedule and good money. It was a moment of truth.”