Last week it was announced that the Colorado PGA has earned the PGA of America’s national Herb Graffis Award, given to a PGA Section for “extraordinary and exemplary contributions and achievements in the area of player development.” (READ MORE)

And on Tuesday, the Colorado PGA revealed many of its 2018 award winners, including the Section’s highest honor, which goes to the Golf Professional of the Year.

It’s a fairly common occurrence that the GPOY honor goes to the president of the Section, which certainly makes sense given the work a person in that position devotes to the Colorado PGA. And that’s the case this year, with president Ty Thompson (left) of Crosshairs Consulting earning the award.

Over the years, Thompson has worked at D’Lance Golf, Valley Country Club, The Pinery Country Club, Cherry Hills Country Club and Colorado Springs Country Club, where he was head golf professional starting in 2010, later becoming director of golf. Last year, the U.S. Army veteran started Colorado Springs-based Crosshairs Consulting, where he’s helping PGA pros manage efficient, lean operations. He’s been a PGA golf professional since 2005.

The Golf Professional of the Year honors “the working PGA Professional whose total contributions to the game best exemplify the complete PGA Professional. … The highest annual honor bestowed upon a PGA professional, the award is based on the candidate’s entire record, with special emphasis placed on performance and achievement over the past five years in the following criteria: overall performance as a PGA professional at his/her facility; service to the Colorado PGA Section; leadership ability; image and ability to inspire fellow PGA professionals; and promotion of golf.”

Thompson previously received two other awards from the Section: Assistant Professional of the Year in 2006 while on Clayton Cole’s staff at Cherry Hills, and Private Merchandiser of the Year in 2011 at Colorado Springs CC.

Other Colorado PGA awards — including players of the year, the Todd Phipers Media Award, President’s Award and the Vic Kline Award — will be announced later.

The honorees will receive their awards on Nov. 2 at the Colorado PGA Special Awards Gala at Colorado Golf Club in Parker.

Here are all of the award winners announced on Tuesday (updated October 2018):

Golf Professional of the Year — Ty Thompson, Crosshairs Consulting.

Dow Finsterwald Player of the Year — Doug Rohrbaugh, AndersonOrd Golf Apparel

Senior Player of the Year — Doug Rohrbaugh, AndersonOrd Golf Apparel

Women’s Player of the Year — Sherry Andonian-Smith, Valley CC

Associate Player of the Year — Ben Lanting, Bear Creek GC

“¨Teacher of the Year — Dan Sniffin, Omni Interlocken Resort

“¨Bill Strausbaugh Award (mentoring fellow PGA professionals) — Stuart Bruening, The Golf Club at Bear Dance.

“¨Assistant Professional of the Year — Ed Marzec, Country Club of the Rockies.

“¨Horton Smith Award (exceptional contributions to promote and improve PGA educational programs) — Ben Welsh, Frost Creek Club.
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Player Development Award — Trent Wearner, Trent Wearner Golf Academy.
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Youth Player Development Award — Erin Diegel, Legacy Ridge Golf Course.
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Warren Smith Award (special contributions to game of golf, the Colorado PGA, junior golf and their facility) — Kyle Heyen, Hiwan Golf Club.

“¨Private Merchandiser of the Year — Jake O’Dell, The Club at Flying Horse.
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Resort Merchandiser of the Year — Jeff Hanson, Red Sky Golf Club.

“¨Public Merchandiser of the Year — Brian Carlson, Walnut Creek Golf Preserve.
 

The Golf Professional of the Year award goes to a Section member for overall performance, including leadership, service and promotion of the game of golf.

Kelbel, a member of the PGA since 1993, is a third-generation golf professional and he’s helped 36 assistants advance to become head professionals.

The Broadmoor, of course, will be in the spotlight next summer when the club hosts the U.S. Senior Open for the second time in 11 years. And in between, the U.S. Women’s Open paid a visit in 2011.

Kelbel and the other Section honorees will be given their awards on Oct. 27 at the Colorado PGA’s Special Awards Gala.

(Updated Oct. 12) Here are all of the award winners announced this week, with more honorees being named later.

Golf Professional of the Year — Mark Kelbel, The Broadmoor Golf Club

Teacher of the Year — Trent Wearner, Trent Wearner Golf Academy

Bill Strausbaugh Award (mentoring fellow PGA professionals) — Ty Walker, GolfTEC Denver Tech Center

Assistant Professional of the Year — Cy Twete, The Golf Club at Bear Dance

Horton Smith Award (exceptional contributions to promote and improve PGA educational programs) — Patrick Nuber, GolfTEC, national director of teaching quality and instruction

Player Development Award — Leighton Smith, The First Tee of Pikes Peak

Youth Player Development Award — Todd Laxson, Cherokee Ridge Golf Course

Warren Smith Award (special contributions to game of golf, the Colorado PGA, junior golf and their facility) — Barry Milstead, Valley Country Club

Private Merchandiser of the Year — Steve David, Denver Country Club

Resort Merchandiser of the Year — Phillip Tobias, River Course and Ranch Course at Keystone Resort

Public Merchandiser of the Year — Dale Smigelsky, Collindale Golf Course.

Todd Phipers Media Award — Stan Fenn and Doug Perry (Morning Cup of Golf radio show)

President’s Award (promoting and enhancing PGA professionals, the PGA Section and the game of golf and contributing to the betterment of the golf professional vocation) — Eric Kenealy

In addition to those named above, the Colorado PGA recently had one of its own earn a national award as Mark Pfingston, the head professional at The Golf Club at Bear Dance in Larkspur, was named the PGA of America’s 2017 Merchandiser of the Year for public facilities. For more on that honor, CLICK HERE.

Warren Smith Jr. fell just short of hitting his 100th birthday, which would have been celebrated on Oct. 20. But that’s one of the few notable milestones that the “Pro’s Pro” didn’t reach.

Smith, one of the most influential figures in the history of Colorado golf, passed away Sunday in La Quinta, Calif., at the age of 99. Services are pending, but Smith’s son, also named Warren Smith, said it’s hoped that there will be a celebration of life held in the Denver area this summer.

To say that the longtime head professional at Cherry Hills Country Club lived a full life would be a massive understatement.

As his son noted on Tuesday, “He wasn’t cheated.”

Indeed, Warren Smith Jr., won’t soon be forgotten by those in the Colorado golf community. Just to tick off several notable items about Smith, who served as the head professional at Cherry Hills from 1963 through 1990:

— He was one of the first national PGA of America award winners from Colorado, earning the Golf Professional of the Year honor in 1973, the same year he claimed a similar Section-wide award from the Colorado PGA.

— In 2005, Smith was inducted into the national PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame.

— In 2009, a well-received book about Smith — “The Pro’s Pro. Lessons on Life and Golf from the Ol’ Pro at Cherry Hills Country Club,” written by Tripp Baltz — was published.

— For almost 30 years, the Colorado PGA has given out the “Warren Smith Award”, a lifetime achievement honor which goes to PGA professionals for outstanding contributions to the game of golf, the Colorado Section, junior golf and their facility. Fittingly, the first Warren Smith Award was given to Smith himself, in 1986.

— Smith, a five-time president of the Colorado PGA, was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1978, just its sixth year of existence.

— At the time Smith was given an honorary membership at Cherry Hills, just two other people had received such an honor: President Dwight Eisenhower and Arnold Palmer, winner of the 1960 U.S. Open at the club.

“He was The Pro, simply,” said current Cherry Hills head professional John Ogden. “He was arguably the most respected pro to ever come from Colorado. He played in several majors himself and he hosted five majors here.

“He had a great life. And everyone who met him said he was the consummate southern gentleman. No one ever had anything bad to say about him.”

During Smith’s time as head professional at Cherry Hills, the club hosted the 1978 U.S. Open, the 1985 PGA Championship, the 1990 U.S. Amateur, the 1976 U.S. Senior Amateur and the 1983 U.S. Mid-Amateur. Among his close friends were Palmer, Byron Nelson, Dow Finsterwald and Harvey Penick, who taught at Cherry Hills during a couple summers in the 1960s.

Smith is one of just six head professionals in the 93-year history of Cherry Hills, and he served the longest of any of the six.

“He was a role model for the assistant (professionals) who worked for him and for the whole (Colorado PGA) Section,” said Clayton Cole, who served as an assistant under Smith from 1970-74 then succeeded him as the head professional at Cherry Hills when he retired at the end of 1990. “The way he handled himself, his morals … he was the best role model you could have.”

Cole remembers that when he was hired as an assistant pro, Smith told him something that Cole subsequently passed along to his own assistants.

“He said, ‘Clayton, there are going to be some members you like better than others, but we’re going to like all of our members,'” Cole recalled. “He knew how to take care of the customer.”

Cole was one of at least 16 assistant professionals under Smith who went on to head professional positions.

Though Smith spent 28 years in his official capacity at Cherry Hills, he lived an eventful life before he arrived in Colorado.

He was born in Escanaba, Michigan, and raised in Gadsden, Alabama. He turned pro in 1943 and achieved his PGA status in 1948. He served in the U.S. Merchant Marine in 1945 and helped deliver supplies to troops in Naples, Italy.

After returning to the U.S., Smith did some double duty of sorts by working for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio in the morning and early afternoon, then giving lessons and serving as a professional at Seiberling Country Club in the afternoon and evening.

A year later, he was hired as the head professional at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas. During his 16 years there, he served as a president of the Central Texas PGA Section and helped lure the PGA Tour’s Texas Open to Oak Hills in the early 1960s.

Smith was also an accomplished player. In fact, he once jointly held the PGA Tour record for consecutive birdies — seven, a feat he accomplished at the 1955 Texas Open. That mark stood until Bob Goalby made eight in a row in the 1961 St. Petersburg Open.

Smith played in two U.S. Opens (1963 and ’66) — he competed alongside a Colorado amateur named Hale Irwin in ’66 — and two PGA Championships, advancing to the quarterfinals of match play in 1957.

Hyland Hills’ Mazone Passes Away at 74: Also passing away this week — on Tuesday — was another prominent longtime Colorado PGA professional, Marv Mazone, who was a fixture at Hyland Hills Golf Course in Westminster. Mazone, born June 26, 1940, was 74 years old.

Mazone headed golf operations at Hyland Hills for 32 years — 20 as head professional and a dozen as director of golf. He retired in 2009, and he received the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s Lifetime Achievement Award that same year. In 2011, Mazone earned the Warren Smith Award from the Colorado PGA. Earlier in his career, he was named the Public Merchandiser of the Year by the CPGA in both 1988 and ’89. Sixteen members of his staff went on to head professional positions.

Under Mazone’s leadership, Hyland Hills hosted the 1990 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.