Last week, Zahkai Brown told his dad he was planning to play a round at Lake Arbor Golf Club in Arvada, a course on which the family lives.
“My dad said, ‘The course record is 59. See what you can do,'” Brown recalls of the conversation.
Well, as it turns out, Zahkai Brown did plenty.
Last Tuesday, the 2013 HealthOne Colorado Open champion shot a cool 13-under-par 57, no doubt one of the lowest — if not the lowest — scores ever shot on a par-70 or higher course in Colorado.
“I thought, ‘How is anyone going to believe this?'” Brown said in a recent phone conversation. “It was effortless. I just hit fairways and greens and made putts.”
According to the R&A, though the term “course record” isn’t defined in the Rules of Golf, it’s generally accepted that a score should be recognized as the official course record only if “made in an individual stroke play competition with the holes and tee-markers in their proper medal or championships positions.”
Though Brown’s score doesn’t qualify for an official course record under those standards, it’s the next-best thing. It did come in a casual round, but it was shot from “the tips”, Brown said he putted everything out, and he was playing with three fellow playing professionals who served as witnesses: brother Zen, Keenan Holt and Bryan Kruse.
So however it should be termed, Brown’s 57 certainly appears to be on the up and up, albeit on a course that tops out at about 5,841 yards.
“And anyone who knows Zen knows he doesn’t like losing to me,” Zahkai noted with a chuckle.
Besides winning the 2013 Colorado Open, Zahkai Brown has captured titles in the 2011 CGA Stroke Play and the 2009 CGA Public Links, and he was named the CGA’s amateur Player of the Year in 2011. Zen Brown, meanwhile, won the 2007 CGA Match Play and the 2005 CGA Publinks.
Asked about his brother’s round of 57, Zen said, “It’s one of the best rounds of golf I’ve ever seen. He was never in trouble. On 360-yard holes, he’d drive the green or be within 20 yards. You don’t realize (immediately that he’s made) so many birdies. You think, ‘Oh I guess he’s 13 under.’ It was, ho hum, hit it close. All of a sudden it adds up pretty fast.”
Zahkai, who like Zen grew up in Arvada and played college golf at Colorado State University, finished the day with 11 birdies an an eagle at the par-5 fifth hole. On the front nine, he racked up an eagle and six birdies for an 8-under-par 27. On the inward half, he chalked up another five birdies for a 5-under 30. (The scorecard is below.)
“It was pretty crazy,” Zen Brown said. “When somebody is playing really well, you try not to point it out (as it’s going on). So we didn’t say anything until he hit the green on 18.”
So when did Zahkai Brown first entertain thoughts of a round in the 50s?
“The first time I thought I had a chance was when the superintendent said, ‘You guys trying to break 60?’,” he said. “I was 12 under through 13, but I parred 14, 15 and 16” before finishing birdie-par.
Given that he’s a playing professional — and a long-hitting one at that — Brown very rarely plays a course as short as Lake Arbor. Even though his family lives on hole 12 at the course, Brown said he hadn’t played a round there in about four or five years. But on a whim, he put together the foursome of pros — and friends and family — for last Tuesday at Lake Arbor.
“Three people asked us that (why we were playing there), including the superintendent,” Brown noted.
For the record, all four players broke par that day, with Zen, having arrived in Arvada at 1 a.m. after driving up from Arizona, shooting a 69, while Holt had a 67 and Kruse a 65.
As for Zahkai, he drove it on or right next to the green on five par-4s ranging in distance from 341 to 375 yards, making birdie on each occasion. He also went a combined 5 under on the four par-5s, making an eagle on the 488-yard fifth.
Asked what he told the people in the golf shop after completing his round of 57, Brown said, “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to brag. But I told the people at the cash register and they called to check what the course record was, and they said it was 59.”
According to PGA head professional Lee Kauffman, two people have shot 59 at Lake Arbor — Dick Dorn in the 1970s, and Neil Huffaker four years ago, with Huffaker’s round coming in a men’s club tournament.
Kauffman said he wasn’t stunned when he heard someone had shot 57 at Lake Arbor, especially when he heard that someone was Brown.
“That’s a pretty crazy score,” Kauffman said. “I was pretty surprised, but not really surprised. If anyone would do it, it would be Zahkai or Zenon because they grew up out here.”
For his part, Zahkai Brown is certainly no stranger to low rounds. When he finished second in the Colorado Open in 2012, he carded a 63 at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club. And the next year, when he won the tournament, he closed with rounds of 64-64. He said he’s also had 62 on a few occasions, including at Indian Tree, to go along with a 63 at Fort Collins Country Club and Walking Stick in Pueblo, and a 65 at Colorado National during an NCAA regional tournament.
Brown was also a witness to one of the lowest tournament rounds in state history as he was paired with Jim Knous when Knous fired a course-record 60 at Boulder Country Club in the 2010 CGA Stroke Play to force a playoff with eventual champion Wyndham Clark.
