Colorado Springs resident Colin Prater, the 2016 CGA Amateur champion, concluded his college career at Colorado-Colorado Springs by placing 12th individually. Also tied for 12th was another Coloradan and a senior, Josh Gardella of Colorado Christian. Gardella closed with a 3-under-par 69 on Wednesday, while Prater (pictured) had a bogey-free 70, both good for a 4-under 212 total for three rounds. They finished 13 strokes behind individual winner John VanDerLaan of Florida Southern.

And the Colorado School of Mines’ George Markham, a junior from Phoenix, ended up 20th Wedneday at 215. He played his final 11 holes in 2 under par after going 7 over in a four-hole stretch en route to a final-round 76.

The top eight team finishers in stroke play will advance to match play, and UCCS ended up in the ninth spot, though the Mountain Lions were nine strokes out of eighth place.

Colorado Christian, making its first NCAA Division II Finals appearance, placed 16th in the 20-team field.

Men’s NCAA Division II Finals
May 21-23, 2018 (final) in Muscle Shoals, Ala.
9. (out of 20 teams) Colorado-Colorado Springs 298-293-286–877
12. Colin Prater 71-71-70–212
39. Tanner Comes 77-71-72–220
44. Ji Jang 75-75-71–221
63. Jack Duguid 75-76-73–224
95. Isaac Spillum 80-77-78–235

16. Colorado Christian 303-296-299–898
12. Josh Gardella 70-73-69–212
63. Nolan Backman 73-73-78–224
85. Noah Woolsey 80-76-75–231
92. Chase Carlson 82-74-77–233
106. Eric Oneth 80-80-89–249

Also
20. George Markham, Colorado School of Mines 70-69-76–215
 

Marty Jertson doesn’t readily remember many of the details of his win in the CGA Amateur. But that’s understandable considering it occurred 16 years ago, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since.

“That was a long time ago,” Jertson noted in a recent phone interview. “Kevin Stadler was in the field (and finished seventh). That was always a fun thing. He went on to win the Phoenix Open and all that stuff.”

With the 2017 CGA Amateur coming up next week — Aug. 3-6 at the Sonnenalp Club in Edwards, where Stadler won the 2002 Colorado Open — we thought we’d catch up with Jertson, who is still a fine golfer but has made quite a name for himself in a related realm.

Jertson only lived in Colorado for four years of his life (1998-2002), but it was in the Centennial State that the seeds were planted for what he’s become — the director of product development at one of the top golf equipment companies in the world, Ping. In other words, he heads up the design of new clubs for the brand that is currently used by Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Louis Oosthuizen, Aaron Baddeley, Hunter Mahan and Harris English, among others.

Golf equipment product development and design is nice mixture of what Jertson learned and cultivated in his college years as a mechanical engineering student and golfer at Colorado School of Mines, where he was both an NCAA All-American and an NCAA Academic All-American as a senior in 2002.

“That same summer I won the Colorado state am (at Saddle Rock Golf Course), I think I qualified for the USGA Public Links,” Jertson remembers. “I won a handful of college tournaments. I graduated and decided to turn pro, go to Q-school and do that whole deal. I did that for about a year and a half after college. I quickly wised up that it was an uphill battle and that the odds were kind of against you no matter how good you are.

“I had a mini-tour friend, and one of his friends he grew up with went to CU and worked at Ping and he kind of got me an ‘in’ as an intern. When I decided to quit playing full-time, the company hired me full-time as a designer, and I’ve been doing product design ever since. I gradually got a little more experience and (four years ago) got the role I’m in now, where I kind of lead all the design efforts.”

When Jertson was at the School of Mines, he certainly didn’t envision this career path, even though it’s turned out to be a near-ideal occuption for him.

“Ironically, I didn’t,” the 36-year-old Phoenix resident said. “I just thought, ‘How would you even get into that?’ There’s no schooling for golf club design so it was never even seriously on my radar. I figured I’d do what a lot of the students at the School of Mines do and go into the oil and gas industry or petroleum or automotive or aerospace or something like that.

“I didn’t have my mind set on that or ever even really consider it. But in hindsight it’s obviously been an amazing fit for me.”

Jertson has worked on many Ping projects over the last 14 years, but ask him to name one club with which he played a major design role and that he takes particular pride in, and he gives a direct answer.

“I would say the G30 driver (left),” he said. “That was one of the projects I worked on (in 2013) and we just brought a lot of new technology to market, including some aerodynamic technology — the things on the crown called turbulators — and that driver caught fire on the market and was the No. 1-selling driver for a good chunk of time in the marketplace.”

Some people might look at the task of Jertson and people like him and see it as a bit frustrating: always trying to out-do yourself and design something better than what you’ve done before. But there’s obviously another way of looking at that issue, and that’s how Jertson views it.

“Sometimes it is hard, but at the same time that’s the fun part,” he said. “We kind of thrive on that exact challenge. I think what makes the job unique for both me and my co-workers here at Ping that do the same thing is that we’re all very passionate golfers so we get to experience the joys but also the pains of something that we can improve. If we have a club that goes too far left or right or springs too much, we personally experience that and get to work on it and try to improve it.”

In fact, that’s the thing he likes most about golf equipment design.

“That there’s no end in sight,” he said. “It’s a never-ending challenge. I think that a lot of the golf community thinks that manufacturers are highly regulated and they can’t advance anymore, but nothing could be further from the truth. On some design and research aspects, we’re just barely scratching the surface. So I like that I can do it literally my whole career and never reach an end, because there will always been advancement and challenges to design and manufacturing that we can overcome.”

Even though Jertson has long since given up playing full-time for a living — though he’s a longtime PGA professional — that certainly doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still have game.

Most notably, since 2010 he’s competed in six PGA Tour events, including the PGA Championship in 2011 and ’12. But he’s still seeking his first made cut in The Big Show. Elsewhere, he finished fifth in the national PGA Professional Championship in 2011 and seventh in 2012. And in 2011, he represented the U.S. in the PGA Cup, a Ryder Cup-like competition for club professionals.

Jertson said his ability to play at a high level is highly beneficial when it comes to his design work.

“It helps a lot, but at the same time we kind of challenge and train ourselves to be sympathetic and observational of the 15-18 handicapper, the club golfer, and how they play the game and the sport,” Jertson said. “Club design is kind of a renaissance thing. It’s art and science combined. The engineering background gives me the science and the playing background gives me the eye for designing and what looks good and feels good.”

So how does a designer appease both a PGA Tour player and an 18-handicapper?

“It all boils down to the age-old question of what do golfers want and need — longer and straighter,” Jertson said. “Longer, straighter, feels good, looks good. Within those categories, there’s different priorities for tour players and everyday golfers. But we always try to boil it down to the very simple problem we’re trying to solve. There’s a lot of overlap because a tour player wants longer and straighter and so does the beginning golfer.”

As for his own game, Jertson relishes the time he does get to play and compete.

“I love it,” he said. “I play in a lot of the Southwest Section PGA events now. It’s usually just constraints of the summer. I think if I played any more than I do, I’d maybe get burned out and fatigued by the game and the effort it requires to put in. But I like kind of playing as a hobby and still having the competitive aspect of competing against myself and the golf course and the field obviously. It’s fun to still be able to do that. Being a member of the PGA of America is a great opportunity to still compete against a lot of really good competitors — and occasionally get in a tour event or do something fun like that.

“Playing in six Tour events and working a pretty busy, high-responsibility job at the same time is something I take pride in — just being able to balance both of those things.”
 

The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, which this week won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament, earned the No. 2 seed out of 10 teams in the South Central Region, which will join with the West Region in conducting a regional May 8-10 in Stockton, Calif., in

Joining UCCS in Stockton will be Colorado School of Mines (seeded sixth), Colorado Christian (seventh) and Colorado State-Pueblo (ninth). St. Mary’s of Texas is the top seed from the South Central Region.

In addition, Trevor McKune of Colorado Mesa and Jordan McBrayer from Regis will be competing as individuals in Stockton.

At least the top three teams and the top two individuals not on those teams will advance from the South Central/West Regional to the DII national finals, set for May 22-26 in Kissimmee, Fla.

Last year, the Men’s and Women’s NCAA DII Finals were both held in the Denver metro area.
 

Knous led the NCAA Division II Championship Finals for most of Thursday’s final round of stroke play in Louisville, Ky.

But Josh Creel of Central Oklahoma birdied two of his last three holes in regulation to tie Knous, then won their playoff with a par on the first extra hole.

So Knous, a product of Basalt High School, had to settle for second place in the nation’s Division II ranks as his college career came to a close.

Knous finished the season with five individual victories, including three in a row heading into the national tournament.

In the NCAA finals, Knous shot a 3-under-par 69 on Thursday to move into the lead. With most of his competition playing in the afternoon, Knous went off early and posted his four-birdie, one-bogey round.

By the time he finished, he held the outright lead, and it took a late rally by Creel to catch up. Creel birdied Nos. 16 and 17 and parred 18 to shoot 71 and tie Knous, forcing the playoff.

Knous, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Year, ended up at 10-under-par 206.

Knous is perhaps best known for a couple of stellar rounds he posted in finishing second in the 2010 CGA Stroke Play Championship, and in being the medalist in last year’s U.S. Amateur qualifying in Aurora. Knous shot a 10-under-par 60 in the final round of the Stroke Play, and a 9-under-par 63 at Heritage Eagle Bend Golf Club. In both cases, he set the course record by two shots.

While Knous took second place individually on Thursday, his School of Mines team failed to advance to the match play portion of the Division II finals. Needing to finish in the top eight in stroke play to earn a spot in the quarterfinals, the Orediggers tied for 11th, with an 882 total for three rounds.

It was necessary to shoot 873 or lower to advance.

Meanwhile, at the women’s NCAA Division II Championship Finals, also in Louisville, Colorado Mesa moved up to 11th place in the 12-team field. Jessica Berve is leading the way for Mesa individually as she stands in 41st place at 168 for two rounds.

11. Colorado School of Mines 293-291-298–882
2 (playoff). Jim Knous 70-67-69–206; 45. Michael Lee 72-74-76–222; 67. Jordan Arndt 77-73-76–226; 79. Cory Bacon 75-77-77–229; 97. Kyle Grassel 76-84-77–237.

Women’s NCAA Div. II Championship Finals
May 16-19, 2012 in Louisville, Ky.

11. Colorado Mesa 356-344–700
41. Jessica Berve 87-81–168; 52. Michelle Stripp 87-85–172; 59. Jennifer Hilts 89-88–177; 66. Alisa Lindsay 93-91–184; 67. Afton Balling 97-90–187.