The name has been tweaked, but one trend continues for arguably the CGA’s most prestigious championship.
The tournament which for decades had been known as the CGA Stroke Play will now be called the CGA Amateur Championship presented by Webster Investment Advisors. The idea for the name change was the CGA tournament committee’s desire to designate major championships, in this case in the open-age division.
But while some things change for the event that dates back to the 1930s, others remain the same.
Most notably, the CGA Amateur this year will return to a site it has frequented more than any other over the last 40 years, before which CGA records of sites for the championships aren’t complete.
This year’s tournament will be held Aug. 4-7 at Boulder Country Club. It will mark the sixth time BCC has hosted the CGA Amateur since 1978. The next-most-visited course for the championship since ’78 has been Lakewood Country Club, which has hosted five times in that period.
In the new century, the CGA Amateur will have been contested at BCC three times in the last 11 years — in 2006, 2010 and 2016. In both ’06 and ’10, the title was settled in a playoff, with Pat Grady prevailing 10 years ago and Wyndham Clark claiming the title in 2010. In the latter case, it was a particularly notable championship as Clark was a 16-year-old when he won, and Jim Knous fired a course-record 10-under-par 60 in the final round to force a playoff.
As in previous years, next week’s CGA Amateur will be a 72-hole affair, with a starting field of 84 cut to the low 40 players and ties after two rounds.
The 2016 tournament will be somewhat unique in that, as of Friday, only one former champion was in the field, 2015 winner Chris Korte, a University of Denver golfer.
Among the others who are entered are 2016 CGA Match Play champ Nathaniel Goddard, who finished second last year in the CGA Am; 2016 U.S. Amateur qualifiers Kyler Dunkle and Colin Prater; 2016 CoBank Colorado Open low-amateur Jimmy Makloski; 2004 CGA Player of the Year Steve Irwin; 2015 U.S. Am match play qualifier Jake Staiano; and 2015 CGA Mid-Amateur winner Jon Lindstrom.
For Thursday’s pairings, CLICK HERE.
