It’s been a relatively quiet spring portion of the season, performance-wise, for Colorado college golfers and local Division I teams, but if last year is any indication, don’t count out the fireworks quite yet.
Conference tournaments, the beginning of the most crucial time of the college season, will be held in the next 3½ weeks, and if they’re anything like 2010, players and teams with Colorado connections should be salivating at the opportunity.
First up on the schedule is the Mountain West Conference Championships for the Colorado State University women’s team Thursday through Saturday (April 14-16) in Phoenix.
Last year, here are some of the highlights of a big conference tournament season by Colorado standards:
— The CSU men won their second MWC title in the last three years.
— Then-CSU junior Ryan Peterson claimed the MWC individual championship.
— The University of Denver women won their seventh consecutive Sun Belt Conference tournament.
— In what would be her one and only college victory, DU freshman Kimberly Kim earned the Sun Belt individual victory. Within a few months, the 2006 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion turned pro, and now she’s a rookie on the LPGA Tour.
— University of San Diego golfer Gunner Wiebe, a resident of Aurora, claimed the West Coast Conference title, marking one of three college tournaments he won during the 2010 calendar year.
Local teams and players can only hope there’s more success on the horizon this year. For the men, there’s even more on the line this spring with one of the NCAA regional tournaments being held at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie May 19-21. Qualifying for regionals is a long shot at this point for most of the local men’s teams.
Based on their current national rankings, the Colorado-based Division I programs most likely to make some noise at the conference tournaments and beyond are the University of Colorado women, the University of Denver women, and the CSU men. Individually, CU juniors Jessica Wallace (pictured) and Emily Talley are consistently on tournament leaderboards, and Wiebe, Peterson and Coloradan Jamie Marshall (a senior at the University of Arkansas) are no stranger to college wins.
The CU women, owner of two victories and top-five finishes in all 10 of their tournaments, go into the postseason ranked as highly as 30th in the country, while DU is 44th. The CSU men, while not as strong as recent years, are still ranked among the top 70 teams in the nation.
Individually, Wallace is ranked as high as 34th in the country. Twice named the Big 12 female golfer of the month this season, the transfer from Pepperdine has notched a CU women’s record five top-five individual finishes this season, including one victory. With a 72.66 stroke average, she’s on pace to set the program record for lowest season-long norm in program history (73.38 currently).
Teammate Talley stands 64th in one national set of college rankings. This season, she was named Big 12 female golfer of the month for September and earned a spot on the USA’s World University Games team.
On the men’s side, Wiebe, Peterson and Marshall each has won a college tournament this season and is ranked among the top 110 college players in the country. Peterson has four top-five finishes to his credit as a senior. Denver’s Mark Hubbard, a senior at San Jose State, also has won this season, but is not as highly ranked.
Here is a list of upcoming conference tournaments, in chronological order, and the Colorado Division I teams competing:
Mountain West Conference women, April 14-16, Phoenix — CSU.
Sun Belt Conference women, Muscle Shoals, Ala., April 18-20 — DU.
Big Sky Conference women, Chandler, Ariz., April 18-20 — University of Northern Colorado.
Big 12 Conference women, April 22-24, Columbia, Mo. — CU.
Sun Belt Conference men, Muscle Shoals, Ala., April 25-27 — DU.
Big 12 Conference men, April 25-27, Hutchinson, Kan. — CU.
America Sky Conference men, May 2-4, Scottsdale, Ariz. — UNC.
Mountain West Conference men, May 5-7, Tucson — CSU, Air Force.
Outside the Division I ranks, the CU-Colorado Springs men are the highest-ranked Colorado team, standing as high as 23rd in the national Division II polls.
