How an Army Veteran Found His Calling in Golf as a Standout PGA of America Member

PGA of America Golf Professional Tom Son was born and raised in South Korea and immigrated to the United States when he was nine years old. With an uncle already living in Philadelphia, Son’s parents moved the family to the City of Brotherly Love and opened a cheesesteak shop near the University of Pennsylvania campus that they manned seven days a week for more than a decade. 

With the dedicated work ethic demonstrated by his parents, Son, now the PGA of America General Manager at Arrowood Golf Course in Oceanside, California, graduated from Wissahickon High School, where he played soccer, football, basketball, indoor track and baseball, and headed north to West Point where he was recruited for football and soccer. 

After getting cut from the Black Knights football team and playing soccer in his freshman year along the Hudson, Son said goodbye to athletics for the time being, not really knowing the role sport would eventually play in his life. Not having been even exposed to golf at the time, Son says he “didn’t even know the game existed.”

Upon graduating from West Point with an economics degree in 1994, Son satisfied his five years of mandatory service in the United States Army in his native South Korea. At the completion of his military service, Son pursued his passion for investment banking and got a job with Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong in 1999.

“I was always interested in the finance world and credit a high school trip to the financial district in New York City with sparking that interest in me,” Son explains. “I saw these guys in nice suits and wanted to be one of them.”

In 2004, Son returned to South Korea to work for J.P. Morgan for three years and Deutsche Bank for almost a decade.

While in the Army in South Korea, Son started playing golf at a nearby military course. He got very interested in the game and would utilize those skills in his role as a banking executive, wooing clients and closing deals on the links. Son played with his clients almost every weekend, and had a good game early on for someone who had no junior golf background whatsoever.

“I just loved it,” he admits. 

In 2016, with his son Colin now nine years old (the age he was when coming to the United States), and Son himself in his mid-40s, he decided to take a risk and move his own family back to the U.S., saying goodbye to the world of high finance to pursue his love for golf.

He chose San Diego, California, as a destination and attended the Golf Academy of America. During his last year in school, Son met the owner of Arrowood Golf Course in nearby Oceanside and was made co-general manager as part of an internship during his final semester. He graduated in 2017 and was made full-time GM at Arrowood in 2018, just two years after getting into the business of golf. 

“I’ve been here at Arrowood ever since and have had the time of my life,” Son says. 

Today, Son is on the Southern California PGA Board of Directors and oversees a staff of 80 Arrowood employees at the 18-hole public golf course. He has implemented plans that have transformed the facility into a destination for public golfers in San Diego. 

With its Flight Deck, an on-range entertainment area that combines practice, technology, socialization, and food & beverage, Son has increased play exorbitantly and made Arrowood a highly successful public golf course. They hosted community fairs and farmer’s markets during COVID-19 and gave local residents a place to get out and walk when the pandemic had us all cooped up at home. 

They’re also counting the days (quite literally if you go on their website) to the opening of their six new pickleball courts and have increased revenues greatly during his time at the helm. 

Colin Son has followed in his father’s footsteps and is a sophomore at West Point. He has aspirations of serving his tour of duty back home in South Korea, as well. 

Now a proud PGA of America Member, Son earned the Southern California PGA Section’s Professional Development Award in 2021 and its Bill Strausbaugh Award in 2022. Both awards highlight the mentoring successes of their recipients and the desire to share one’s education with others in the PGA of America.

Today, Son’s facility hosts three PGA HOPE programs, as well as monthly play dates for Wounded Warriors and other Veteran organizations. They have five PGA HOPE-certified PGA of America Golf Professionals and another former Veteran who is certified to teach in the PGA HOPE program.

Son may be only six years into his golf career, but he’s got three decades of leadership experience from even before his days at the United States Military Academy. He’s sharing his love for the game with his everyday guests and with fellow Veterans who seek the game of golf as an outlet from their other daily concerns.

And after his own military service and a career in finance, Son has found an outlet in golf, too . . . one where he's making a positive difference for his community a day at a time.