Boice was the inaugural chairman of the Conquistadores’ first PGA Tour event, 1966, when it took on the responsibility of not only keeping its spot on the PGA Tour calendar, but also raising enough money to draw the interest of future Tucson Open champions Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson.
Boice was at the wheel when the Tucson Open gained its first national TV coverage in ’66, raising the purse from $46,000 to $60,000 to make it competitive with the PGA Tour’s prestigious West Coast tour events in Pebble Beach, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Phoenix.
“There were 32 of us then,’’ he remembers. “Now there are close to 200. After my year as chairman, I parked cars in Year 2. There is no elitism; we all pitch in and are involved in every capacity.
“It’s almost hard to believe it’s been able to maintain itself all these years.’’
The Conquistadores rescued a floundering golf event that had moved from El Rio to Forty-Niner Country Club and finally to the grand Tucson National course in what was then remote northwest edge of Tucson.
Prize money grew from $60,000 to $200,000 in the Conquistadores’ first decade and continued to climb past $1 million in 1984, when it staged a historic reunion of match play to the PGA Tour, providing $708,000 for PGA Tour regulars and $300,000 for the Senior Tour qualifiers.