The inaugural AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior, presented by MusclePharm, will be quite a national and international affair.
The tournament, which features some of the top junior players in the U.S. and beyond, will be held June 2-4 by CommonGround Golf Course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA. A junior-am and practice rounds are scheduled for June 1.
The 96-player field, with separate boys and girls divisions, is expected to include entrants from three nations — the U.S., Canada and Mexico — along with 17 states (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington).
The American Junior Golf Association conducts one of the premier junior circuits in the world. Among those who have been regular tournament participants in the past are Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia, Stacy Lewis and Paula Creamer.
The AJGA held 108 tournaments in 2014, but the 54-hole Hale Irwin Colorado Junior will mark the AJGA’s first stop in the Centennial State since 2013. The AJGA circuit dates back to 1978, and a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer, J.R. “Digger” Smith, is an AJGA founder and a longtime chairman of the board of directors.
At CommonGround, about 40 percent of the field — all age 18 and younger — will be Coloradans. That includes at least seven in-state players who have signed national letters of intent to play college golf at NCAA Division I schools: Pierce Aichinger, Wilson Belk and Ross Macdonald (Colorado), Jake Staiano and AJ Ott (Colorado State), Jennifer Kupcho (Wake Forest), and Gillian Vance (Colorado).
Kupcho, the 2014 CWGA Player of the Year who recently won her second consecutive 4A girls state high school title by double digits, checks in at No. 179 in the girls division of the AJGA’s Polo Golf Rankings. The top competing Coloradan in the boys field, according to those same rankings, is Aichinger (No. 197).
Coloradans have a history of winning AJGA events in their home state. Just since 2008, in-state players who have accomplished that feat include Josh Seiple, Jimmy Makloski, David Oraee (twice), Wyndham Clark, Patricia Lee and Cole Nygren.
The man after whom next week’s tournament is named, three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin, cut his teeth as a Colorado junior golfer. In 1962, he captured his first state championship, prevailing in the CGA Junior Match Play. He then won the individual state high school title in 1963, helping his Boulder High squad claim the team championship.
That same year, having just turned 18, Irwin won the first of three consecutive CGA Stroke Play championships, becoming the first person to accomplish that feat. In 1966 in his hometown of Boulder, Irwin captured the CGA Match Play title, in the finals defeating three-time defending champion, current Colorado Golf Hall of Famer and CU teammate Larry McAtee, 5 and 4.
In ’66 as an amateur, Irwin also qualified for his first U.S. Open and went on to make the cut. Later that year, he was named an All-Big Eight defensive back in football for the second time. And the next spring he claimed the NCAA golf individual title while a CU senior.
As a pro, Irwin won 20 times on the PGA Tour, including the U.S. Open in 1974, ’79 and ’90, the last making him the oldest Open champion ever, at 45. Then he’s won 45 times on the Champions Tour — the most ever on that circuit by a remarkable margin of 16. And along the way, he earned his way into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Fittingly, the Hale Irwin Elite Player Program is based at CommonGround, site of next week’s AJGA event. Irwin himself will be on hand at CommonGround on Monday to conduct a by-invitation-only short-game clinic and participate in a Q&A session.
CommonGround, a Tom Doak-designed course which opened in 2009, should prove a good test for the AJGA competitors. It’s been the site of numerous state amateur championships and served as the second stroke-play course for the 2012 U.S. Amateur that Cherry Hills Country Club hosted. Among the players who participated in that championship were Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Thomas.
A qualifying tournament for the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior will be held on Sunday, with six spots for boys and two for girls likely to be at stake. During next week’s tournament dates, tee times will run 7 a.m.-12:10 p.m. each day.
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