Jennifer Kupcho, who has accomplished so many golf “firsts” in her teenage years, just added another one to the list.
The 19-year-old from Westminster has been named the CWGA Player of the Year for 2016, becoming the first person to earn that award three consecutive years.
And, speaking of repeat winners, Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton landed CWGA Senior Player of the Year honors for the second straight year and for the seventh time in eight years. Eaton has also been named CWGA Player of the Year a record four times, the last coming in 2010. For more on her accomplishments, see below.
Kupcho and Eaton will be presented their awards at the CWGA annual meeting March 4 at the Inverness Hotel & Conference Center in Englewood.
Kupcho has become arguably the most accomplished young female golfer in Colorado since Jill McGill, the Cherry Creek High School graduate who won the 1993 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the ’94 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links before earning more than $2.3 million in her LPGA Tour career.
How high has Kupcho climbed?
She’s currently No. 16 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings. And in the women’s college ranks, the Wake Forest sophomore is No. 1, 3 or 4 in the country, depending on which ranking is used.
In Colorado in 2016, Kupcho ran away with the titles in both of the CWGA’s top two championships (pictured above), prevailing 12 and 10 in the scheduled 36-hole final of the CWGA Match Play, and by 19 shots in the CWGA Stroke Play. This year marked the first time since 2004 — when Eaton did it — that one person swept both of those titles in the same year. Taking it a step further, Kupcho has now won the last three CWGA majors, dating back to the 2015 CWGA Stroke Play, making her the first to win three straight since Wendy Werley claimed four in a row in 1988 and ’89.
It should also be noted that during her Stroke Play victory this year, Kupcho set the women’s course record at historic Denver Country Club with a second-round 65, bettering the old mark of 68, established by world-renowned athlete Babe Zaharias on July 3, 1946.
But that just scratches the surface of Kupcho’s accomplishments in 2016. At the end of her freshman season at Wake Forest, the two-time Colorado 4A state high school champion finished second individually at the women’s ACC Championship and sixth at the NCAA Division I Championship.
She also qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open — arguably the top women’s golf tournament in the world — for the first time, though she missed the cut there. And once she returned to Wake Forest for her sophomore season, Kupcho not only went 4-for-4 in notching top-10 finishes, but she won individual titles in each of last two college starts, which pushed her into the No. 1 spot on the women’s college golfer of the year watch list.
Besides being named CWGA Player of the Year this fall, Kupcho was also voted the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s Golf Person of the Year.
“Jennifer, she is a brick wall” as a competitor, said Gillian Vance, the 2015 5A state high school champion who teamed up with Kupcho to win the CWGA Mashie Championship. “She is so good, and I’m so proud of her.”
At the senior level, Eaton likewise has a way of setting herself apart. In Colorado this year, she won the CWGA Senior Match Play for the third time, this one by defeating fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Christie Austin in the final. It was Eaton’s 22nd CWGA title overall.
Eaton (left), a 57-year-old former Greeley resident who now calls Arizona home, finished ninth in the CWGA Stroke Play that Kupcho won.
On the national/international stage, Eaton advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur for an amazing fourth time in eight years. And she won the senior title in the prestigious Ione D. Jones/Doherty national women’s amateur championship and claimed the Women’s Trans National Four-Ball title with teammate Leigh Klasse.
In Arizona, Eaton not only earned a victory at the AWGA State Amateur Seniors Championship, but she won the open-age-division title in the AWGA State Amateur Stroke Play. She captured both the Player of the Year and Senior Player of the Year awards from the AWGA this year.
