The cup runneth over in the way of story angles for the 53rd CoBank Colorado Open.
After all:
— A two-time PGA Tour winner (Jonathan Kaye) — who happens to be a part-time Boulder resident — leads by two through Saturday’s third round at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in northeast Denver.
— A Coloradan hasn’t won the state open since 2013, but three of the top five players going into the final round — Kaye, Jacob Lestishen of Lone Tree and Jake Staiano of Cherry Hills Village — are residents of the Centennial State.
— An amateur hasn’t won the overall Colorado Open title since Brian Guetz pulled off the feat in 1994. In the first 52 Opens, only Gary Longfellow (1974) and Guetz are champions as amateurs. But Staino, a Colorado State University golfer, is contending for the honor after a third-round 8-under-par 64 left him two strokes behind Kaye.
— And a year after Neil Johnson was the first player to earn $100,000 for winning the Colorado Open, he gave himself a chance for another huge payday on Sunday. The Phoenix resident shot a 9-under-par 63 on Saturday — the low round of the tournament — to vault into second place with Staiano, Lestishen and Oscar Fraustro of Mexico.
Kaye, the former University of Colorado golfer who last played a tournament three months ago, is seeking his first tourney victory since his second PGA Tour win, the 2004 FBR Open.
“I might have won a skin somewhere,” Kaye (pictured above) said with a hint of a smile. “Other than that, I don’t think so. I got a couple of skins actually.”
Kaye, who will turn 47 on Aug. 2, shot a bogey-free round for the second time in three days, pitching to inside of a foot on No. 18 for his seventh birdie of the day. That left the 2016 Colorado Open runner-up at 17-under-par 199. With scores of 67-67-65, Kaye has posted seven consecutive sub-par rounds at GVR.
If Kaye — or Johnson — would win on Sunday, he would become the seventh player to claim at least two Colorado Open titles, joining Dave Hill (4), Bill Loeffler (3), Bill Bisdorf (3), Derek Tolan (2), Guetz (2) and Jim Blair (2).
And this time around, for the second time, there’s the $100,000 first prize to go with it — except for an amateur like Staiano.
“Everybody wants a hundred grand, right?” Kaye said. “Nobody wants the 10 or 20 (thousand that goes to the third- or second-place finishers). There’s not many times in your life where you can have a shot that can sway that much. I’m sure everyone is in that mindset that they want that rather than the other checks.”
And, mind you, this coming from a guy who has won more than $10 million in his PGA Tour career.
“There’s still another day, so I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing — try to birdie every hole,” Kaye said. “I’m pleased with everything so far and hopefully I can just do it another day. (But) anybody here can shoot 10 under and come out of nowhere. You’ve got to be on guard.”
Kaye’s closest pursuers through 54 holes are all two back, at 201, with Johnson shooting a 63 on Saturday, Staiano a 64, Fraustro a 67, and Lestishen a 68.
For Staiano (left), the 8-under 64 was the lowest tournament-round score he’s ever shot, relative to par. The two-time U.S. Amateur qualifier made an eagle on the ninth hole Saturday after lipping out what would have been a double eagle from 290 yards with a 3-wood. The 20-year-old added seven birdies and one bogey in round 3.
“I like this course,” he said. “It really sets up well for me. It sets up well for the longer hitters. I feel like I can attack almost all the holes. Knowing there’s a lot of birdies out there and I can score makes me feel really comfortable.”
Last year, Staiano likewise started with three straight rounds in the 60s, and he was on pace for low-amateur honors. But a final-round 77 opened the door for then-CSU teammate Jimmy Makloski to earn the low-am trophy.
“What happened last year when I had a 3-4 shot lead on Jimmy going into the last round and blew that — that was still in the back of my mind” going into this week, Staiano said.
But the mindset changes now that Staiano is just two shots out of the overall lead. (He’s ahead of second-place Chris Thayer of Golden by seven in the low-amateur race.)
“These amateurs in the field are still awesome and they could do what I did today (on Sunday),” Staiano said. “But obviously I’m trying to win the tournament, see if I can do something special. If I can get that done, great. If I can get low am, that’s awesome too.
“Too bad I can’t take the 100 grand (with a potential win on Sunday) but it still would be fun to put my hands on the trophy. I know I can compete with these guys. I’m going to be doing it for a living in 1 1/2 or two years.”
For the record, Staiano will go into Sunday having played his previous 22 holes in 11 under par. He finished round 2 on Friday with a hole-out eagle from a greenside bunker on No. 18.
For his part, Lestishen (left) followed up his Friday 64 with a 68 Saturday that included five birdies and a bogey.
As for Johnson, as good as he was last year in winning the Colorado Open (64-69-68-64), Saturday marked his best round at GVR. He racked up nine birdies in a bogey-free day and ended up just one off the course record.
“I thought, ‘Hey, it’s moving day’ when I was warming up,” the 35-year-old said. “It’s not going to be very windy and with rain overnight, the greens are going to be soft. Maybe I felt like I could be a little more aggressive. And I felt like birdies would be out there. Like year was like this all four days; the wind didn’t blow. Let’s see if I can get that going, and I did today.”
Should Johnson win today, he’d become the first back-to-back winner of the Colorado Open since Hill in 1976-77. Bisdorf won the first two Opens, in 1964-65.
“At least I’ve fought my way back into the mix (with Saturday’s 63),” Johnson said. “Let’s see if I can do another miracle-type thing as I did last year.”
Johnson won an event last week on the Dakotas Tour, earning $10,500. But mainly this year, thanks to his $100,000 Colorado Open payday in 2016, he’s been trying to Monday qualify for PGA Tour events. So far, he’s made it into the Puerto Rico Open and the Travelers Championship, though he didn’t make the cut at either site.
“Simply put, (winning $100,000 last year at GVR) literally overnight changed my career,” Johnson said. “‘Let’s go for the big time. Let’s go for PGA and Web qualifiers.’ It’s been a lot of fun and rewarding — you win the lottery essentially. You’re freed up for a year.”
Notable: Tee times for Sunday’s final round will begin at 7:30 a.m., with the leaders (Kaye, Staiano and Johnson) teeing off at 9:36 a.m. … Overall, on the line Sunday will be $250,000, with the aforementioned $100,000 going to the low professional/winner. … Kaye and Johnson are two of seven former Colorado Open champions who made the 36-hole cut, joining Derek Tolan (currently at 207), Scott Petersen (211), Ian Davis (211), Ben Portie (214) and Zahkai Brown (217).
For all the scores from the Colorado Open, CLICK HERE.
