IN 1981, LEIGH BADER and his buddy Joe Ricci pooled $4,000 to put a down payment on a scraggly little golf course with a dinky pro shop to match in the exurbs of Boston, and were amazed they convinced a bank to loan them the rest. Yet, in time, by dreaming big, with the old-fashioned virtues of hard work and positivity, they grew Pine Oaks not just healthy but robust.
The course now ranks among Massachusetts’ best nine-hole public tracks. Really, though, it’s in retail that Bader, 65, has made his biggest mark. Joe & Leigh’s Discount Golf Pro Shop swelled from a 290-square-foot glorified broom closet to an 8,000-square-foot operation, the country’s second-largest on-course store. Bader also launched, and later sold, one of the first online golf shops, 3balls.com,…