The CWGA Match Play Championship has been held every year since 1916 come hell or high water. Even World Wars didn’t interrupt the run.
Not coincidentally, the inaugural Match Play was conducted the same year the CWGA was founded, 98 years ago.
But with interest dwindling in competing in the oldest continuously-held statewide women’s golf championship in Colorado, CWGA leadership decided to cancel the 2014 CWGA Match Play Championship “due to low entries”. It was scheduled for June 23-26 at Lone Tree Golf Club, with the first round being qualifying to set the match-play bracket.
The CWGA had extended the entry deadline for the Match Play twice, but still had drawn only 43 players between the open-age and senior flights. Last year, 54 started the event. A full field for the Match Play as currently configured would be 96 players. (The CWGA Match Play trophy is pictured above.)
“It’s a traditional championship and historical, but it’s OK to stop and get feedback,” said Ann Guiberson, the CWGA’s new executive director. “It may be time to stop and rebrand.”
Guiberson added that “we want to continue to have it because it’s one of the oldest championships.” But, according to the notice that the CWGA sent to 2014 Match Play entrants, the CWGA Tournament Committee “will further review the format, timing and participation in this championship over the course of this season. We welcome your input.”
Guiberson indicated the numbers simply weren’t there to support a full-scale, multi-flight championship. With 16 players in the open championship-flight bracket and eight in the senior championship flight, a total 19 players would have been left for the non-championship-flight brackets on the open and senior side.
“It’s just in fairness to the players and the (Lone Tree) club,” Guiberson said. “You’ve got to take into consideration the course; they would have lost tremendous revenue.”
Looking forward, the CWGA will consider how heavily it promotes the championship, and how it’s presented. There are two champions crowned — open division and seniors — “but it’s presented as one,” Guiberson noted.
There’s also the issue of timing. The CWGA Match Play was scheduled to be contested just two weeks after a very popular team match play event — the just-completed CWGA Mashie, which drew 192 competitors.
“Are they too close?” Guiberson asked. “We have to look in relation to other events.”
Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Joan Birkland, a four-time winner of the CWGA Match Play in the 1960s, admits she doesn’t know why competitor interest in the championship is dropping, but she has a guess. “The players of college golf age are so good that older players figure it’s not worth playing,” she said.
The last open-division CWGA Match Play champion who won when she was 25 or older was Kim Eaton in 2004.
Among the most successful players all-time in the CWGA Match Play, Phyllis Buchanan won six times in the 1930s, and Birkland, Marcia Bailey and Carol Flenniken claimed the title four times each in the 1960s and ’70s.
Players who entered the 2014 Match Play will receive a full refund.
