The 2010 CGA Match Play Championship is guaranteed to be historic, but it could be doubly so.
The CGA’s oldest tournament dates back to 1901, and this year, for the first time, it will be played at a course owned and operated by the CGA, along with the CWGA.
The Match Play runs Monday through Friday (July 5-9) at CommonGround Golf Course, the Tom Doak-designed public facility that opened 13½ months ago. It will be the first of what certainly will be many CGA and CWGA championships contested at the course that borders Denver and Aurora.
Later this summer, CommonGround will host its first CWGA championship as the women’s association Match Play is set for Aug. 2-5.
As for the men, Steve Ziegler of Broomfield (pictured) has a chance to make some CGA history of his own at the Match Play. Last year, the Stanford golfer became the first player since Brandt Jobe in 1985 to sweep the CGA Match Play and Stroke Play titles in the same year.
Should Ziegler claim the 2010 Match Play title, it’s believed he would become the first player since 1952-53 to win three consecutive CGA flagship events (the Match Play and the Stroke Play). Lou North is the only player to have pulled off the feat, sweeping the 1952 Match and Stroke Plays, and winning the 1953 Match Play.
Jobe is the only other player in CGA history to win three CGA flagship tournaments in two years, but after claiming the 1984 CGA Match Play, he fell short in the Stroke Play before sweeping the events the following year.
Ziegler, a quarterfinalist in the 2009 U.S. Amateur, automatically will be the top seed in the 64-man match play bracket at CommonGround. The other 63 match-play contestants and their seedings will be determined through stroke-play qualifying on Monday.
The first round of matches will be played Tuesday, then two more rounds are planned for both Wednesday and Thursday, with the 36-hole final set for Friday.
Three Colorado residents who play college golf figure to be among the tournament favorites. Besides Ziegler, there’s Gunner Wiebe of Aurora and Zahkai Brown of Arvada. Wiebe, playing for the University of San Diego, finished 25th in last month’s NCAA Championship Finals, while Ziegler was 41st. Colorado State’s Brown, like Wiebe and Ziegler, has at least one major college tournament victory to his credit.
Some of the biggest names in the history of Colorado golf have won the CGA Match Play title at least once in their careers. World Golf Hall of Famer and three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin won the Match Play in 1966. Steve Jones, winner of the 1996 U.S. Open and seven other PGA Tour events, claimed the Match Play title in 1980. Jobe, who played on the PGA Tour regularly from 1999 to 2009, won the Match Play trophy in 1984, ’85 and ’88. And current Tour player Kevin Stadler earned Match Play crowns in 1999 and 2002.
