Who would have guessed this day would ever come?
The top golfers in the most recent watch lists for the ANNIKA Award (given at the end of the season to the national player of the year in women’s college golf) and the Haskins Award (presented to the men’s national player of the year in college golf) are both Colorado residents.
Not Californians, not Texans, not Floridians, but Coloradans — in this case Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster (a sophomore at Wake Forest) and Wyndham Clark of Highlands Ranch (a fifth-year senior at Oregon). Both never finished outside the top 10 in their fall college tournaments, with Kupcho winning her last two events of the autumn, becoming the only NCAA Division I woman in the country to win more than one full-field event in the first two months of the season.
We’ll delve more into college golf when both the men’s and women’s fall season is complete, but the rankings of Kupcho and Clark are two of the many highlights of the 2016 tournament season in Colorado and for Colorado golfers. With the tourney season in the Centennial state now complete, it’s worth taking a look back at some of the top moments of the year:
— Kupcho (pictured) is a good place to start given that she’s had a season few Colorado women golfers have ever matched. That includes becoming the first player to win three straight CWGA majors since the late 1980s as she swept the 2016 Match Play and Stroke Play titles. And the 19-year-old did it by amazing margins — 12 and 10 in a 36-hole match play finale, and 19 shots in the Stroke Play. In the Stroke Play, she set the women’s course record at historic Denver Country Club with a 7-under-par 65, breaking the previous mark of 68 established by world-renowned athlete Babe Zaharias on July 3, 1946.
Out of the state, besides notching her first two college victories, Kupcho placed sixth in the women’s NCAA Championship Finals as a freshman. And she and fellow Coloradan Hannah Wood both qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open, arguably the top women’s tournament in the world.
It’s little wonder why Kupcho was recently named the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s Golf Person of the Year.
— As for Clark, he posted three top-six finishes in his first three tournaments at Oregon after transferring from Oklahoma State. Over the summer, Clark qualified for his fifth U.S. Amateur — quite a feat for a player 22 years old. And once he made it to the U.S. Am, he advanced to the round of 32 in match play out of an original field of 312.
— Though, as mentioned above, NCAA Division I golfers from Colorado accomplished plenty in 2016, it’s worth noting that two golfers from the Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference won the CGA’s top two open-division championships in 2016. Nathaniel Goddard, who wrapped up his Colorado Christian golf career last spring, prevailed in the CGA Match Play, while current University of Colorado-Colorado Springs golfer Colin Prater (left) won the CGA Amateur by five shots.
— Two of the most remarkable scores shot in tournament golf in recent months were recorded by players with strong Colorado connections. University of Colorado senior Esther Lee set the NCAA women’s record for lowest score in relation to par as she shot an 11-under-par 61 in September at the Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invitational, held at the University of New Mexico’s Championship Course in Albuquerque, where Lee claimed the title.
Then last month, Denver resident James Love fired a 12-under-par 59 in a Web.com Q-school event at Sunriver Golf Course in St. George, Utah. That helped earn the former University of Denver golfer a spot in a second-stage tournament this week.
— Speaking of former DU golfers, former Pioneers had the distinction of qualifying for two of the biggest tournaments in the world in 2016.
Oskar Arvidsson earned medalist honors in a British Open qualifier in Scotland, landing a spot in the third men’s major championship of the year, where he missed the 36-hole cut.
Also this summer, Espen Kofstad qualified for the Olympics by winning a tournament on the European Challenge Tour. He finished 43rd in the men’s tourney at the Summer Games.
— Several players with strong Colorado ties made a splash in USGA championships in 2016.
Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton made it to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur for a remarkable fourth time. Earlier in the year, Eaton made the CWGA Senior Match Play the 22nd CWGA title of her career.
Also advancing to the final eight in a USGA championship was Alex Buecking of Columbine Valley, who joined former SMU teammate Jason Enloe in making the quarters of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.
And CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year Kyler Dunkle (left) earned a berth in the final 16 of the U.S. Amateur just a year after finishing 311th out of 312th in stroke play at the same event.
— Certainly one of the biggest oddities of the year took place at the CGA Mid-Amateur. The top finishers at the 2016 tournament looked almost identical to the 2015 version.
Not only did Jon Lindstrom win by four strokes for the second straight year, but the top four finishers were the same in 2016 as they were in 2015. In fact, they were almost in the exact same order, with the only difference being Steve Irwin tying for second this year and placing third alone in 2015. For the record, Chris Thayer tied Irwin for second and Ryan Axlund was fourth.
— Back on the college front, the CGA’s 2015 Junior Player of the Year made a remarkably quick adjustment at the next level. University of Northern Colorado freshman Coby Welch, competing in just his fourth college tournament, won the individual title at the 108-man Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational after a final-round 66 at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie.
— Also in college, Colorado State University senior Blake Cannon pulled off a remarkable feat in September, winning two college titles in one week, the first one coming at CSU’s Ram Masters Invitational at Fort Collins Country Club. This was after going his first three years as a collegian without an individual victory.
— Geoff Keffer used his first victory in the Coloado PGA Professional Championship to move into some rarefied air. Keffer subsequently received the CPGA’s Dow Finsterwald Player of the Year award for the third straight year and fourth time in the last five seasons. Only three other players have captured that honor three straight years: Bob Hold (1966-71), Vic Kline (1977-79) and Ron Vlosich (1986-88). Vlosich, by the way, qualified for his fifth U.S. Senior Open in 2016.
— Mary Weinstein (left) of Highlands Ranch had a rather remarkable run to wrap up her junior career. After winning the 5A state individual title to close out her high school career at Regis Jesuit, Weinstein won the first two Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado majors ever held, the Colorado Junior Amateur and the Colorado Junior PGA Championship. Then she finished strong in national events, placing 15th at the Junior PGA Championship a week after ending up fifth at the Optimist International Junior.
Not surprisingly, Weinstein was named the JGAC’s female player of the year, while AJ Ott of Fort Collins earned the male award. Ott won the boys title at the Colorado Junior PGA at Indian Tree, shooting a course-record 7-under-par 63 on day 2.
— Kent Moore‘s victory in the CGA Super-Senior Stroke Play certainly wasn’t the most prestigious victory of his career, but it did continue to expand upon a rather remarkable distinction. The Colorado Golf Hall of Famer has now claimed titles in seven different CGA individual championships — the Junior Match Play, Amateur, Match Play, Mid-Amateur, Senior Amateur, Senior Match Play and now the Super-Senior Stroke Play — an unprecedented feat in CGA competition. Moreover, he’s won CGA championships in five consecutive decades, starting with the 1973 CGA Junior Match Play at Flatirons Golf Course.
— In team competition, the amateurs broke new ground in 2016. This year marked the first time ever that amateurs from the CGA and CWGA won all three competitions in the Colorado Cup matches against the pros from the Colorado PGA — the open-division men, senior-division men and open-division women. But later in the year, the Colorado PGA earned a big team victory of its own, winning the biennial Taylor Cup matches against the Sun Country PGA for the first time since 2008.
Also on the team front, Kent Denver High School set a Colorado High School Activities Association record by winning its ninth boys golf state title. Kent captured the 3A team title this time around.
— Sherry Andonian-Smith, an instructor at Valley Country Club, made some history of her own this fall when she became the first female to win one of the Colorado PGA’s top tournaments. With a 5-under-par 139 total, she prevailed by three shots at the Colorado PGA West Chapter Championship at Aspen Glen Club.
Also scoring a first in 2016 was Alexandra Braga from Denver Country Club, who won the inaugural Colorado PGA Women’s Championship, held at Cherry Creek Country Club.
— And, let’s finish off with the biggest-money event of the year … Neil Johnson of Phoenix earned the distinction of being the first winner of the CoBank Colorado Open after the tournament more than quadrupled its first-place prize money, to $100,000. Johnson was playing in his first Colorado Open after qualifying for the tournament on Monday of championship week.
Part-time Boulder resident Jonathan Kaye, winner of two PGA Tour events, tied for second place in his first tournament in two years.
