Editor’s Note: With the CGA celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1915, this is the fifth monthly installment of a series of stories looking back on the last century of golf in Colorado. All the articles are being published on coloradogolf.org. This chapter focuses on the period from 1955-64. For the previous installments, CLICK HERE
Between what happened, golf-wise, in Colorado and what Coloradans accomplished in golf, it’s hard to top the decade from 1955 to ’64.
After all, these are just a handful of the biggest highlights of that 10-year period:
— Arnold Palmer won his only U.S. Open in Colorado.
— Jack Nicklaus claimed his first USGA title in the state.
— Also at a Colorado site, Bill Wright became the first African-American to win a USGA championship.
— A Colorado Springs resident, Barbara McIntire, earned two U.S. Women’s Amateur titles, along with a British Ladies’ Amateur, and finished second in a playoff at the U.S. Women’s Open.
— And the Colorado Open made its debut, taking a first step toward becoming one of the top state opens in the country.
Yes, it was a heady time for the game in the Centennial State.
Let’s provide a few more details.
— The 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills Country Club has been called “Golf’s Greatest Championship” in the title of one book. And why not, with three generations of golf greats battling it out down the stretch? Forty-seven-year-old Ben Hogan, a four-time U.S. Open champ, was tied for the lead on the 71st tee, But he found water on both 17 and 18, going bogey-triple bogey to finish ninth. Twenty-year-old Nicklaus, winner of the U.S. Amateur the previous year in Colorado, placed second, two back of The King.
Of course, Palmer rallied from seven shots back going into the final round, driving the green on the par-4 first hole and chipping in for birdie at No. 2 en route to a 65. It would turn out to be his only victory in the U.S. Open — one he punctuated with his famous visor toss on the 18th green (pictured at top).
— Less than a year before the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, Nicklaus had taken down defending champion and two-time winner Charlie Coe, 1 up in the 36-hole final of the U.S. Amateur at the Broadmoor Golf Club’s East Course in Colorado Springs. (The two are pictured together at left.)
The final was all square going into the 36th hole, and though Coe missed the green, he almost chipped in for birdie, with the ball ending up on the lip of the cup. The 19-year-old Nicklaus then drained an 8-foot birdie putt to become the youngest U.S. Am champion in 50 years. He would go on to capture a second U.S. Amateur title in 1961.
— Also that same summer of 1959, some history was made in another USGA championship in Colorado. Wellshire Golf Course hosted the U.S. Amateur Public Links, and in front of a crowd estimated at 2,000, the 23-year-old Wright (left) of Seattle broke new ground as the first black golfer to capture a USGA title.
— McIntire set the all-time standard for success for Colorado women amateurs with her play during the 1950s and ’60s. In 1956, McIntire very nearly became the first amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open as she was tied with Kathy Cornelius after four rounds, but lost an 18-hole playoff the next day (75-82) to finish runner-up.
But that wouldn’t be her only run at a USGA title. Both in 1959 and ’64, McIntire captured national championships in the U.S. Women’s Amateur. And in 1960, she became just the fourth American to win the British Ladies Amateur. (Coincidentally, the first, Babe Zaharias, was also a Coloradan when she prevailed in 1947.) McIntire (below) played on the U.S. Curtis Cup teams in 1958, ’60, ’62, ’64, ’66 and ’72, and as a youngster she was runner-up in the U.S. Girls’ Junior in both 1951 and ’52, losing in the ’52 final 1 up to one Mickey Wright. And for good measure, McIntire also won the 1962 CWGA Stroke Play.
— In 1964, one of the mainstays of the Colorado golf schedule came on the scene. The first Colorado Open was played at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, where it would remain through 1991. Bill Bisdorf, then the head professional at Green Gables Country Club, won three of the first four Opens, the first of which featured no prize money. And by the 1970s, the tournament drew quite a field of players. Among those who have competed in the event are Sam Snead, Phil Mickelson, Billy Casper, Hale Irwin, Fred Couples, Steve Jones, Dave Hill and Jimmy Walker.
But all that just scratched the surface of what occurred in the decade in Colorado golf beginning in 1955. Here are some of the other notable happenings:
— After fewer than 10 courses opened in the 25 years beginning in 1930, a dozen came online in the last half of the 1950s, including country clubs such as Columbine, Valley, Colorado Springs, Pinehurst, Bookcliff and Fort Collins.
— Colorado amateur Jim English had a tremendous run during the decade, winning two Broadmoor Invitations (1955 and ’64), three CGA Stroke Plays (1958, ’59 and ’61) and two CGA Match Plays (1957 and ’60). He was also low amateur in the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.
— President Dwight Eisenhower was hospitalized for a heart attack at Fitzsimons Hospital for six weeks in 1955 the day after experiencing pain while playing 27 holes at Cherry Hills Country Club.
— LPGA Tour events were held at Lakewood Country Club during the mid-1950s, with Marilynn Smith winning in 1955 and Marlene Hagge in 1956.
— The Colorado PGA, a Section of the PGA of America, was founded in 1957. Noble Chalfant, who was serving as president of the Colorado chapter of the Rocky Mountain PGA, played a key role in the separation from the Rocky Mountain Section.
The Colorado PGA became the 31st Section of the PGA of America, originally having 30 members in Colorado and eastern Wyoming.
— Lakewood Country Club hosted the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 1957, when Judy Eller earned the title.
— Dow Finsterwald, who would become the longtime director of golf at the Broadmoor, won the PGA Championship in 1958, the first year it was contested in stroke play. He was the runner-up in the final match-play version of the PGA, in 1957, the year he won the Vardon Trophy for best season-long scoring average on the PGA Tour.
— Joan Birkland had a stellar run in golf in the 1960s while also being one of the state’s top tennis players. She won four out of five CWGA Match Plays starting in 1960 and three straight CWGA Stroke Plays beginning in 1964. With racket in hand, she captured two women’s open singles titles at the Colorado State Open from 1962-66.
— Two other current members of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame likewise had outstanding decades from 1955-64, with Sally Hardwick winning five state amateurs out of a possible six from 1957 through ’59. And from ’53 to ’56, she earned three CWGA Junior Match Play titles. And Marcia Bailey won the first of four CWGA Match Plays in 1963. She also prevailed in two CWGA Stroke Plays beginning in ’63.
— In 1961, the CGA merged with the Denver District Golf Association, bringing the state’s major amateur tournaments under the CGA’s umbrella.
— A founding member of the City Park Golf Course-based East Denver Golf Club, which was made up of African-American golfers, helped knock down racial barriers in state golf tournaments. After Judge James Flanigan was refused the right to play in the CGA Match Play Championship in 1961 — on the grounds he wasn’t a member of a CGA-sanctioned club — the association the next year changed its policies and admitted minority clubs, including the East Denver Golf Club.
— In 1961, the CGA established the Eisenhower Scholarship, awarded to selected college-bound junior golfers. The CGA merged the Eisenhower Scholarship with the Western Golf Association’s Evans Caddie Scholarship in 1963, and a house for the Eisenhower-Evans Scholars at the University of Colorado was purchased in the late 1960s.
— The Broadmoor hosted the Curtis Cup matches, between the best female amateurs from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland — in 1962. Colorado’s Judy Bell and Barbara McIntire, along with the future JoAnne Carner, led the U.S. to an 8-1 victory.
— Beginning in 1962, the CGA started measuring and rating all of the state’s golf courses in accordance with USGA procedures, creating a uniform rating system which laid the groundwork for the association to oversee a state-wide standardized handicap system starting in the late 1960s.
— Chi Chi Rodriguez won his first PGA Tour event at the 1963 Denver Open at Denver Country Club. It would prove to be the last Denver Open the PGA Tour would hold.
— Larry McAtee won three consecutive CGA Match Plays beginning in 1963 and finished second to University of Colorado teammate Hale Irwin as he went for a four-peat in 1966. McAtee is now a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.
— Irwin (left) became the first player to win three consecutive CGA Stroke Plays, beginning in 1963 at age 18. The future World Golf Hall of Famer also won a CGA Junior Match in 1962 and a state high school title in 1963.
— In 1963, future USGA president Judy Bell of Colorado Springs won the Women’s Trans National title at Pinehurst Country Club in south Denver.
— In other prestigious tournaments held in Colorado, Jim Wiechers won the 1964 Western Junior at the Air Force Academy and Wright Garrett prevailed at the 1964 Trans Miss at the Broadmoor.
