TPC Colorado in Berthoud has opened in phases over the course of the last year, and one of the remaining items on the “to-do list” will be checked off next week.
That’s when the Arthur Schaupeter-designed Scottish links-style course will host its first big-time tournament. The 54-hole Colorado PGA Professional Championship is scheduled for Monday through Wednesday (Sept. 10-12). It’ll be a worthwhile preview for what’s planned for the course (left) starting next year — a stop on the Web.com Tour, which is just one step below the PGA Tour.
The Web.com Tour — then known as the Nike Tour — previously had a tournament in Colorado in 1996 and ’97, when Riverdale’s Dunes Course in Brighton hosted the Nike Colorado Classic. Stewart Cink, who has since won six times on the PGA Tour including the 2009 British Open, claimed the title in 1996.
(For more on TPC Colorado, CLICK HERE.)
The Colorado PGA Professional Championship will feature a formidable field of most of the top professionals from the Colorado Section. That includes Doug Rohrbaugh of Carbondale, who won this event three straight years starting in 2013. Other winners of the event in the 21st century who are in the field next week include Caine Fitzgerald (2012), Rob Hunt (2009 and ’11), Chris Johnson (2010), Mike Northern (2006), Heikke Nielsen (2005), Bill Loeffler (2000, ’02 and ’04) and Micah Rudosky (2001). Loeffler and fellow participant Ron Vlosich are members of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.
Others who are entered are 2017 runner-up Rick Cole, 2018 Colorado Senior PGA Professional Champion Mike Zaremba, Ari Papadopoulos, TPC Colorado host head pro Stephen Arendt and Eric Bradley. Among the female members competing are Alexandra Braga and Sherry Andonian-Smith. Braga won the first two Colorado PGA Women’s Championships and Andonian-Smith qualified for the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open this year.
But the last two winners from the Colorado PGA Professional Championship aren’t in the field this time around — John Ogden (2017) and Geoff Keffer (2016). Ogden is injured and Keffer, a five-time Colorado PGA Player of the Year, didn’t enter.
The top finishers next week will advance to the 2019 PGA Professional Championship, set for April 28-May 1 in Bluffton, S.C.
For Monday’s tee times, CLICK HERE.
