Thursday, 4:30 PM
Ben Boyd, golf pro, dies at age 37
By Bryan Marquard
Globe Staff
While awaiting what he knew could be a devastating cancer diagnosis from his doctor, Ben Boyd stepped onto a golf course last August to play in a tournament.
"It was like a calmness came over me," he told the Globe later. "It was the strangest thing, a surreal experience. I was watching the flags blow and the birds fly. It was so weird to be thinking I have this going through my body and I'm at this beautiful place on this gorgeous day."
A man who knew how to savor the grace of the moment, Mr. Boyd brought a natural Southern charm to his work as an assistant pro at the Brae Burn Country Club in Newton, and to his more important roles as a husband and father. He died yesterday in his Newton home several months after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus that had spread. He was 37 and had celebrated a marriage blessing with his wife and a hospice chaplain on the couple's 10th anniversary, a week before he died.
"He obviously had a passion for the game and what the game was all about, and helping people," said Mike Bailey, director of golf at Brae Burn. "He had one trait that I will say was remarkable. I don't think Ben could say a bad word about anything. And when he tried to, it would be hilarious. He would pause in a sentence and we would have to fill in words for him or we'd be standing there waiting for a while."
"He was very kind. Compassionate. A good listener," said Mr. Boyd's father, Syd, of Beaumont, Texas. "He was just a people person, actually. What people liked so much about him was that he listened and he cared."
Benjamin B. Boyd was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and moved to Beaumont with his family when he was 9. About three years later, his father brought him to the country club, where he took to golf with a passion not uncommon among adolescent boys.
"He was a little hot-headed and would throw a club every now and then. I put a stop to that," his father said, laughing at the memory. "He was very competitive, but he took instruction well."
Mr. Boyd played on the golf team at West Brook High School and joined the Army for three years after graduating, serving during the Gulf war. He attended Lamar University in Beaumont after being discharged from the Army, "then he decided he wanted to go into the golf business," his father said.
He received an associates degree from the Golf Academy of the South in Florida, which prepares students for careers in golf complex operations and management. Mr. Boyd's first job was at Pine Brook Country Club in Weston, his father said.
Mr. Boyd had met Tara Kiley in New Orleans and they married in 1997. They decided to live around Boston because she had so much family in the area, his father said.
"The most important thing to him was his family -- his family and his friends," his father said. "He had some very good friends. I told my wife that I think he made more friends here than I've made in a lifetime. It's a true statement. He was good to get along with. People just felt comfortable with him -- he put them at ease."
"He's just a great guy -- a true gentleman in every sense of the word," said Steve Turley of Boston, a cousin of Tara Boyd. "He had that infectious optimism about him."
"He was good to everybody, very spiritual, and just a calming, soothing presence," said Tara's sister, Erin Duggan of Concord. "And he was a wonderful husband and an amazing father to Luke."
Mr. Boyd earned his PGA card in January and had already begun introducing his young son to golf.
"He used to bring him over and they'd jump in a cart and go down to the range," Bailey said. "He would get down and hit balls with him and take him out on the little course. They were having a good time together."
Last summer, Mr. Boyd was playing in the finals of the New England PGA Assistants Match Play Championship when he learned that tests had revealed that the cancer had spread from his esophagus to his liver. He kept playing and won. While riding back to the clubhouse with his wife, "we stopped the cart and started hugging each other," he told the Globe. "I said: 'If I can do this, I can do anything. Let's fight this damned thing.' "
He fought hard to live, family members said -- for himself, for Tara, and for Luke.
"Ben showed dignity all the way," Bailey said, recalling an exchange between Mr. Boyd and the country club's general manager during a recent visit. "He said to our GM as he was leaving, 'I'm going to be better in a few days and I'll be able to kick this.' That was a week ago."
In addition to his wife, son, and father, Mr. Boyd leaves his mother, Donna Reynolds of Richton, Miss.; his stepmother, Sheryl of Beaumont, Texas; and two brothers, Sydney Milner Boyd of Beaumont, Texas, and Peter Graf of Richton, Miss.
A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Monday in St. John the Evangelist Church in Wellesley Hills. Burial will be private.
