Ready, Get Set …

The biggest CGA championship schedule ever — in terms of sheer number of events in a given year — will launch next week.

With the CGA and CWGA merging at the beginning of this year, 22 differerent CGA championships/tournaments are on tap — a dozen on the men’s side and 10 on the women’s.

The schedule starts with the CGA Senior Four-Ball, set for Monday through Wednesday (April 30-May 2), and likely will conclude with the finals of the season-long CGA Team Interclub sometime in October.

The lineup is highlighted by the “majors”. On the men’s side, that’s the 118th CGA Match Play June 18-22 at The Club at Ravenna in Littleton, and the CGA Amateur Aug. 2-5 at Pinehurst Country Club in south Denver. As for the women, the Women’s Stroke Play is set for June 20-22 at Black Bear Golf Club in Parker, with the 103rd Women’s Match Play scheduled for July 10-13 at The Fox Hill Club in Longmont.

The first women’s championship of 2018 will be the Brassie May 21-22 at The Club at Flying Horse in Colorado Springs.

Back to the CGA season opener, next week’s 37th annual Senior Four-Ball will be held at West Woods Golf Club in Arvada, which this year opened its newly remodeled clubhouse.

The field for the 54-hole scratch event will feature 50 teams, with all players age 52 and older, and a separate super-senior competition for golfers 62 and older.

Six teams that have won the championship are back intact. That includes defending champions Doug Moore and Raymond Kelley of Lone Tree Golf Club, Robert Polk and Bill Fowler (2016; Polk also won with different partners in 2005 and ’07), David Delich and Bruce Hogg (2014), Kelly Crone and Larry Netherton (2009 and ’13), John Applegate and Keith Masters (2011), and Scott Radcliffe and Sean Forey (2003; Forey also won in 2008). Another former champ in the field is Robert Beiersdorf (2015), who this year is teaming up with Ed Spenner.

Also scheduled to compete at West Woods are Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kent Moore and partner Steve Bell, who lost on the third hole of a super-senior playoff to Crone and Netherton last year; Pat Bucci, winner of the 2017 CGA Senior Match Play and a regular at West Woods, and partner Bob Schuler; Robin Bradbury, the 2016 CGA Senior Player of the Year, and partner Owen Ellis; and Gary Albrecht, winner of the 2017 CGA Super-Senior Stroke Play, and partner John Ingram.

For tee times for the Senior Four-Ball, CLICK HERE.