What could be better for golf aficionados?

Two PGA Tour players, both in the top 70 in the FedExCup Playoff standings, giving golf tips, demonstrating drills, answering loads of questions, and recommending aids you can buy (or build) to improve your game. And there was even some autograph signing and posing for pictures to boot. And it was all free and open to the general public.

That’s what unfolded Wednesday evening at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora at the PGA Tour Player Short Game Clinic that served as a backdrop for the BMW Championship which will start Thursday at Cherry Hills Country Club.

Australian Matt Jones (below) and American Will MacKenzie (above, assisted by Jones), both winners on the PGA Tour, spent an hour with about 250 people that showed up for the event at the new Community Putting Green at CommonGround, a course which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA.

“It was great,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate, who supplemented the questions asked of the pros by emcee Jerry Walters, host of the “In the Fairway” radio show which airs on Saturday mornings on 102.3 ESPN. “You just can’t dial it up any better than that. It was a beautiful spot and gorgeous weather. It was great. It couldn’t have come off any better.”

Jones and MacKenzie, both of whom are in the 69-man field for the BMW Championship, noted that they spend more than 50 percent of their practice time on the short game. They talked about their philosophies and techniques on putting, chipping and pitching.

The two agreed on many things, including the importance of a consistent pre-shot routine.

“It gets a little monotonous, but routine is the most important thing you do in golf,” said MacKenzie (left), a two-time winner on Tour. MacKenzie then proceeded to note all the steps he goes through before he strokes a putt, right down to inhaling and exhaling and wiping off his putter blade every time.

“I thought it was very interesting he’s got his routine down to that kind of detail,” Mate said.

The two pros also gave different perspectives on how each plays shots, particularly those just off the green. MacKenzie called Jones “a short game guru” and “pure” for his chipping and pitching ability. Jones earned his first PGA Tour win this year at the Shell Houston Open by chipping in to end a sudden-death playoff. Jones said that unlike many Tour players, he likes using 9- or even 7-irons for chips from short grass around greens.

Jones then spoke about and demonstrated the importance of angle of attack in imparting spin when chipping and pitching.

Several of those in attendance asked a variety of technique and strategy questions, adding to the queries of Walters and Mate (left, with Jones). Then the two players spent 10-15 minutes signing autographs and posting for photos.

“Hopefully everybody got a lot out of it,” Mate said. “I was really pleased too with the mixture of people. We had a lot of kids and a lot of adults. That was exactly what we built the Community Putting Green for — not that we’d get to host PGA Tour players, but for those kind of opportunities.”

CommonGround, a Tom Doak-designed public course which opened in 2009, served as the second stroke-play course for the 2012 U.S. Amateur that Cherry Hills hosted. It is the home of the acclaimed Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy. George Solich — for whom the Academy is named, along with his brother, Geoff — is the general chairman of the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills.


CommonGround, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, will host a PGA Tour Player Short Game Clinic on Wednesday, Sept. 3, at approximately 5 to 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the general public.

At CommonGround’s new Community Putting Green, two PGA Tour players from the BMW Championship field will give tips on the finer points of the short game and how they approach it. The participating Tour players have yet to be determined; they’ll be finalized Sept. 2 after the BMW Championship field is set. The top 70 players from the FedExCup playoff standings following the Deutsche Bank Championship (Aug. 29-Sept. 1 in Norton, Mass.) will qualify for the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills. The BMW Championship, set for Sept. 4-7, is the third of four FedExCup playoff events.

CommonGround, a Tom Doak-designed public course which opened in 2009, served as the second stroke-play course for the 2012 U.S. Amateur that Cherry Hills hosted. It is the home of the acclaimed Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy. George Solich — for whom the Academy is named, along with his brother, Geoff — is the general chairman of the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills.

The Short Game Clinic at CommonGround will be emceed by Jerry Walters, longtime host of the “In the Fairway” radio show which airs on Saturday mornings on 102.3 ESPN. Walters is also a putting and short game instructor.

CommonGround is located at 10300 East Golfers Way in Aurora, near the intersection of Havana and 1st Avenue.

“One of our goals this year is to have a great partnership with the BMW Championship, and this (clinic) is a way to celebrate the great success of the event,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate. “We also want to celebrate our partnership with the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholarship, and to showcase our mission at CommonGround — ‘A place for all and all the game teaches.'”

The Illinois-based WGA runs the BMW Championship and administers the Evans Scholarship, which fully pays for college tuition and housing for worthy caddies who qualify. One of the 14 Evans Scholar chapter houses nationwide is located at the University of Colorado, and the CGA and CWGA partners with the WGA in supporting the Evans Scholars at CU. The Evans Scholarship is a flagship program for both the CGA and CWGA.

In fact, it was a call from the WGA’s Jeff Harrison that led to the PGA Tour Player Short Game Clinic at CommonGround. He asked officials from the CGA and CWGA if they would be interested in having two PGA Tour players at the course for such an event. The associations couldn’t say yes quickly enough, and given that they have such a vested shared interest in caddies with the WGA, some of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy caddies will be on hand and in uniform for the clinic on Sept. 3.
 

CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora opened five years ago this month, but just in the short period since 2009 it’s gone through plenty of ups and downs.

Only two months before its grand opening, a fire swept through about 130 acres of land just west of the course, but it burned itself out just left of CommonGround’s fifth hole.

Then last September, with more than 14 inches of rain falling in just six days, the Westerly Creek Dam that borders the course did its job — flood control — by protecting land and real estate in nearby areas of eastern Denver and northwestern Aurora. But in the process, it also collected the overflowing water from Westerly Creek on the golf course for weeks on end, killing a lot of grass in the process. At one point, nearly half the course was under water, at some points 6 feet deep of it.

It took nearly a month before the water drained off the course completely, and by then eight holes were damaged severely and the turf on five greens died.

But there have been plenty of positives at CommonGround as well. The Tom Doak-designed course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, has drawn accolades to the point that it served as the second stroke-play course for the 2012 U.S. Amateur. And CommonGround became the home of the highly respected — and imitated — Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, as well as the Hale Irwin Elite Player Program and many community outreach programs that have benefited both youth in the area and the game of golf. Along the way, the course received a $175,000 USGA grant that helped the associations build the nine-hole Kids Course at CommonGround.

In the grand scheme of those ups and downs, suffice it to say that Thursday most certainly fell into the “up” category. After a concerted recovery effort following the flooding, $350,000 in repairs and $750,000-$850,000 in lost revenue, CommonGround held a grand reopening of all 18 holes of the championship course during the Colorado Golf Foundation golf tournament presented by Citywide Banks. (Note: The course will fully re-open to the general public on Sunday.) In addition, the new community putting green at CommonGround (left) was dedicated — in memory of David Herlinger, a golf lover and former Lowry Redevelopment Authority chairman. And the day raised money for Colorado Golf Foundation-supported programs at CommonGround, including the Solich Academy, the Hale Irwin Program, the Colorado PGA Golf in Schools Program, and CommonGround’s community partnerships.

To get the championship course back up to full speed after 8 1/2 months and so much work was gratifying to many of those in attendance.

“It’s exciting for me,” said Tom Lawrence, president of the CGA last year when the floods hit. “Since going out there in the fall, I had been holding off to really take a look. I’ve only played the nine hole (modified course) once or twice since then. I stayed away from looking at the damage. I was pointing to this day so when I got out there, I wanted to see it when it was all finished. So I’m really excited today.

“It’s like a rebirth. I think the whole community is pretty excited about it.”

Five greens — Nos. 5, 6, 11, 12 and 14 — on the west side of the course — were resodded this spring, using about 46,000 square feet of sod grown on a farm in Idaho. (The 11th green is pictured above on Thursday.) Other areas of the course affected were dormant seeded in the fall. All told, about 22 acres of the course required significant work post-flood.

“The resodded greens, you can’t believe how good they are,” said Will Nicholson, the former USGA president who serves as the manager of the CommonGround board. “The key to playing golf is the greens. There are some rough spots in the fairway, but people put up with that as long as the greens are good. And the grass has really popped in the last week now that it’s warmed up.”

CommonGround superintendent Bobby Martin has been roundly credited in helping get the course back fully on its feet, and CGA vice president Joe McCleary has been of considerable assistance given his professional background. McCleary is a former superintendent at Saddle Rock Golf Course and currently serves as a superintendent of stormwater operations for the City of Aurora. He’s also been on the CommonGround board of directors since it was formed.

“If you look at (CommonGround) every day like Bobby and the staff do, you don’t see the improvements as much,” McCleary noted. “If you come back and visit it every week — like I kind of have done — you’re pretty amazed. We’re just hoping the golfers feel the same way. You’ve got to understand it’s not going to be perfect (right away), but you had to open it sometime.”

Getting CommonGround back to operating fully after eight months of being curtailed has taken considerable effort from many individuals, including CommonGround, CGA and CWGA staff, and the CommonGround board of directors.

“Everybody put their shoulder to the wheel and it’s back where it is right now,” Nicholson said.

Lawrence remembers making multiple calls on a daily basis for a couple of months to deal with CommonGround-related matters in the wake of the flooding — to Nicholson, to CGA executive director Ed Mate, to other board members, to the CommonGround management staff.

“Will Nicholson and I got on the phone when it was raining, then I came out two days later because quite frankly you couldn’t get out here (at first),” Lawrence noted. “But once I got out here it was shock. It was just a giant lake. It was shock and it was sadness because the golf course had matured over the years it’s been open to become this gem. Then to see that happen …”

Added McCleary: “I never imagined what happened happening. It was one of those things I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. I’ve been all involved in planning of the golf course and we’d talked about the flood-control dam. (But) you never think it’s going to happen. Driving over and looking at it was pretty unbelievable.”

But, said Lawrence, “then you quickly transfer into a business mode. What do we do? How can we fix it and where do we go from here?”

That eventually brought CommonGround to the point it was on Thursday — reopening all 18 holes of the championship course five years to the month after initially opening.

As CommonGround director of golf Dave Troyer noted on Thursday, “After the first grand opening five years ago, I didn’t think we’d have to do this again.”

Besides getting the full golf course back, Thursday marked the dedication of the 21,700-square-foot community putting green, which was originally supposed to be dedicated last October.

The staff at CommonGround wasted no time utilizing the undulating putting surface. Just hours after local dignitaries and officials hit the first putts on the green toward a nine-inch-wide hole (pictured above), Big Brothers and Big Sisters were stroking putts there (pictured at left). And for good measure, Ping donated 15 putters for use on the new green.