It’s been a remarkable run for Colorado, especially considering that the state is probably more associated with skiing than golf.
For the 43-year period from 1972 through 2014, there’s been only one year (2007) that Colorado hasn’t hosted a significant tour event or a major national/international amateur golf competition.
The LPGA Tour held tournaments in the state for 16 consecutive years beginning in 1972. The Senior/Champions Tour had a six-year run in Colorado beginning in 1982. And the PGA Tour visited annually from 1986-2006 thanks to The International at Castle Pines Golf Club. In addition, there were numerous USGA championships and other big events held in the Centennial State during that time span.
And since The International exited, Colorado has hosted the U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Amateur Public Links in 2008, the 2009 Palmer Cup (a Ryder Cup-like competition for the best college players), the 2010 Senior PGA Championship, the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open, the 2012 U.S. Amateur, the 2013 Solheim Cup and Junior Solheim Cup, and the 2014 BMW Championship.
If nothing else, the state deserves an “A” for variety of major golf events in recent years.
But with the calendar having just flipped over to 2015, this year is an anomaly by Colorado standards. No major tour is paying a visit, nor is a major national/international amateur event.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a healthy smattering of significant and/or out of the ordinary championships to look forward to in Colorado golf and the surrounding area in 2015.
Here is a sampling of such events:
— 100th CWGA Match Play Championship: The CWGA Match Play was first contested in 1916, making it by far the oldest continuously played statewide women’s golf championship in Colorado. CWGA records list Mrs. M.A. McLaughlin, the wife of the first president of the CGA, as the winner of the first two Match Plays, in 1916 at Colorado Springs Country Club and ’17 at Denver Country Club.
The event has been played every year since — and now has a senior championship held concurrently. Among the winners of the tournament is Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Joan Birkland (a four-time champ), who won both state golf and tennis championships in the 1960s.
The 100th CWGA Match Play will be held July 7-9 at Raccoon Creek Golf Course in Littleton.
— Inaugural AJGA Hale Irwin Junior: Some of the best junior golfers in the nation — both boys and girls — will compete at CommonGround Golf Course as the AJGA returns to Colorado for the first time since 2013.
Hale Irwin, winner of four CGA championships, a Colorado state high school title and an NCAA championship while at the University of Colorado, will lend his name to this new event. The inaugural tournament is set for June 2-4, with a qualifying round scheduled for May 31 and a Junior-Am on June 1. CommonGround, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, served as one of the two courses for the stroke-play portion of the 2012 U.S. Amateur that Cherry Hills hosted.
— Women’s Pac-12 Conference Championships: Many of the best women’s college golfers in the world will come to Colorado for the Pac-12 Conference tournament that Boulder Country Club will host April 20-22.
Despite LPGA Tour qualifying prompting three of the conference’s top players to turn pro last month, four of the current top six teams in the nation, according to Golfweek — Washington, UCLA, Stanford and Southern California — will be among those competing in Boulder. In addition, the defending NCAA Division I champion (Doris Chen of USC) will be on hand.
— Girls’ Junior America’s Cup in Cheyenne: Though Cheyenne obviously isn’t in Colorado, it’s right across the state line — and just 100 miles from Denver. Cheyenne Country Club will host the 2015 Girls’ Junior Americas Cup competition that features some of the best female junior players from the western U.S., Canada and Mexico. The dates of the tournament are July 28-30.
Colorado fields one of the 18 teams that annually participate in the Girls’ Junior Americas Cup.
Meanwhile, here are the 2015 dates and sites for some of the top tournaments held annually in Colorado:
— June 3-5: HealthOne Colorado Senior Open, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club.
— July 6-10: CGA Match Play, Broadmoor Mountain Course.
— July 7-9: CWGA Match Play, Raccoon Creek Golf Course.
— July 21-23: CWGA Stroke Play, Pinehurst Country Club.
— July 23-26: HealthOne Colorado Open, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club.
— Aug. 13-16: CGA Stroke Play, CommonGround Golf Course.
— Sept. 14-16: Colorado PGA Professional Championship, Meridian Golf Club.
Note: The dates for the HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open haven’t been finalized, but they are expected to fall in the second half of August.
