During a Thursday morning chat over an outdoor breakfast at The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, Annika Sorenstam, surrounded by nine kids from First Tee programs around the country, confided that she was “extremely shy growing up.”

How shy?

Knowing that junior tournament winners had to give a speech, Sorenstam intentionally missed putts coming down the stretch so that other kids would win and have to do the public speaking.

It’s hard to believe that the Annika Sorenstam at The Broadmoor on Thursday for the inaugural CoBank PEAK Performers event is that same person. For half a day at the site of her 1995 U.S. Women’s Open triumph, she regaled the teenagers with all sorts of stories with valuable life lessons, shared laughs with the kids, made sure to personally connect with every one of them and chatted it up with media folks and with her caddie, a guy familiar to folks at The Broadmoor — aside from the caddie bib — longtime director of golf Russ Miller (below).

“She’s a talker. That’s pretty cool,” said 14-year-old Hunter Swanson from The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch, one of two Coloradans who had the chance to play six holes with Sorenstam, who switched off among three threesomes of kids. (Swanson is pictured above with Sorenstam.)

Sorenstam is one of the greatest players in the history of women’s golf, with the ’95 U.S. Women’s Open win at The Broadmoor being the first of her 72 LPGA Tour victories as well as the first of her 10 wins in major championships. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame 15 years ago.

But it’s been almost a full decade since the Swede ended her competitive career, even though she’s still only 47. But a year before exiting the LPGA Tour, Sorenstam founded the ANNIKA Foundation “with the goal of developing women’s golf around the world and encouraging children to lead healthy, active lifestyles.” Sorenstam has long worked with The First Tee to help accomplish that goal.

“The thing I do with my foundation is I tell people there’s no other sport like golf where you have great ambassadors like these young kids,” Sorenstam said during a brief Q&A with ColoradoGolf.org prior to her round. “These are the next generation of leaders or influencers — or whatever you want to call them. It’s so cool that they play golf. I think we really need to take advantage of these opportunities. I love being part of it — to see how focused these young kids are.

“I think they inspire me as much as hopefully I inspire them.”

If the reaction of the Colorado kids who took part in the CoBank PEAK Performers event is any indication, Sorenstam certainly hit the mark.

“It was kind of surreal. She’s so nice,” said 15-year-old Colorado Springs resident Sarah Abercrombie, who’s been part of The First Tee of Pikes Peak since it was founded. “When I opened up the email (saying she’d been selected to participate in Thursday’s event), I just freaked out.”

Added Swanson, a First Tee GVR regular for nine years and a varsity golfer at Northfield High School: “Once I figured it out at the beginning — that we’re actually going to meet her and play with her — the best women’s golfer ever … It was COOL. It’s way different seeing her in real life. You see how good she is in real life and see how far she hits it. It’s crazy.”

Sorenstam spoke with the kids as a group for about 20 minutes during breakfast (left), hitting on all sorts of topics through personal stories — from her childhood, from her playing career … you name it.

So what is her primary message to the kids?, she was asked later.

“You have nine kids from different parts of the country, different ages, different walks of life so to speak,” she said. “I don’t know what would stick in (a given) kid’s head. But a lot of it is just follow your dreams, do what you like, work hard, no shortcuts to success and learn from your mistakes. That’s some of the things that I have done. It’s kind of finding your own journey. There’s no set journey. Create your own and make it worthwhile.”

For instance, that same Sorenstam who was “extremely shy” growing up, she not only learned to talk in front of a group after winning tournaments. Later, she accepted an invitation to speak to an audience of 10,000.

She wasn’t thrilled with the exercise, “but that’s how you get better — not by running away,” she told the kids on Thursday.

All this — the planting of little seeds if the minds of kids such as these — is part of a plan “to inspire the next generation to be on the right path. But these kids, they’re extremely mature and very determined and very accomplished already.”

Sorenstam (pictured directing Abercrombie) seemed to leave competitive golf while she was still in the prime of her career. She was asked if the decade since has been what she imagined it would be.

“I don’t compete, but I’ve been a lot busier than I thought,” she said. “I’ve been lucky. I’m still able to do fun stuff and be relevant after 10 years. A lot of people just kind of fall off the earth. I’m glad my phone is still ringing.”

And, of course, she still manages to fit in some relaxation. That was part of plan in coming to The Broadmoor, in addition to inspiring The First Tee kids.

“I’ve been back here a few times (since her 1995 victory), but not that many. This is my third time (back),” she said. “This brings back some great memories for sure. This is kind of where my career started. It’s a beautiful spot and it’s neat to be out here. This time I’ve got my family with me, which makes it even more special to be able to share with them kind of where I started.”

Thursday was a culmination of a four-day, all-expenses-paid golf event for the nine First Tee kids, who visited some of the spectacular sites around the Colorado Springs area, in addition to staying at the five-star Broadmoor Resort. The event was sponsored by Denver-based CoBank, The Broadmoor and The First Tee of GVR.

The teenagers were selected after submitting applications that were judged based on the kids’ academic and leadership records, playing resumes and essays about their experience at The First Tee and the impact the program has had on their lives.

The CoBank PEAK Performers winners that played with Sorenstam on Thursday were , in addition to Abercrombie and Swanson, Jackson Boldt and Luke Boldt, both 16 and from The First Tee of Coastal Carolinas; Andrew Santiago Caldwell, 16, from The First Tee of Pine Mountain in Kentucky; Nina Goodrich; 16, from The First Tee of Greater St. Louis; Joshua Lim, 17, from The First Tee of Greater San Antonio; Victoria Slawinski, 17, from The First Tee of Pittsburgh; and Borina Sutikto, 14, from The First Tee of Silicon Valley.

The PEAK Performers event was the brainchild of the folks who conduct and sponsor the CoBank Colorado Open Championships each year at GVR and who run The First Tee of GVR.
 

But two-time PGA Tour winner Jonathan Kaye, a part-time resident of Boulder, was a notable exception. The 1996 Colorado Open champion, who finished second last year, shot a bogey-free 5-under-par 67 and shares third place after day 1 of the $250,000 tournament.

Bryan Fox of Roswell, Ga., and Trevor Murphy of Saint Johnsbury, Vt., both of whom had to qualify to get in the championship, fired 6-under-par 66s to share the lead on Thursday. Murphy, like Kaye, didn’t have a bogey on his card, while Fox recorded seven birdies and one bogey.

With lightning causing a two-hour delay on Thursday, some players didn’t complete round 1 and will do so early Friday morning.

Kaye, who will turn 47 on Aug. 2, was part of a 10-way tie at 67. The next-best Coloradans after day 1 were Steven Kupcho of Westminster, a former CGA Player of the Year and the older brother of local women’s golf sensation Jennifer Kupcho; and amateurs Jake Staiano of Cherry Hills Village and Colorado State University; and Jack Cummings of Arvada. All three posted first-round 68s and are tied for 13th place.

Staiano and Cummings share the low-amateur lead with three rounds remaining.

The field will be cut to the low 60 playes and ties after Friday’s second round.

The winner — or low professional — on Sunday will receive $100,000.

For all the scores from GVR, CLICK HERE.
 

Not surprisingly, more than 95 percent of those loops came from either private clubs or resorts, with caddie-friendly Cherry Hills alone accounting for almost 30 percent of the state’s total.

On the other hand, a notable number of public courses in the state feature some sort of organized caddie program, though almost all of them are very modest in size.

And this year, that number will increase as the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy starts a small pilot program in Grand Junction at Lincoln Park and Tiara Rado (READ MORE), both municipal courses.

Among the other Colorado public courses that have caddies available through a formal program are CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in northeast Denver, and five City of Denver courses: City Park, Willis Case, Wellshire, Kennedy and Overland.

In the case of CommonGround and the Grand Junction courses, the caddie programs are part of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, which also has a chapter at the private Meridian Golf Club. As for the City of Denver facilities and GVR, they’re linked with The First Tee chapters of Denver and GVR.

Suffice it to say caddie programs in Colorado are by no means limited to private and resort courses.

“You’ve got to build the demand for (caddies) at a public course,” said Kevin Laura, the president of GVR who attended the University of Colorado on an Evans Scholarship for caddies. “Public golfers don’t expect to take a caddie, but we (at GVR) have 40 percent walkers.”

Laura said GVR caddies accumulated a total of about 125 loops in 2016, with roughly half of them coming through the three CoBank Colorado Open championships held at the club — the Open, Women’s Open and Senior Open.

Of course, CommonGround Golf Course has proven to be the gold standard for caddie programs at Colorado public courses. Thanks to being the original home of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy — which promotes the use of caddies by paying the base caddie fees through an educational grant, with participating golfers having the option of adding a tip — CommonGround was the site of 1,108 caddie loops in 2016. To put that number into perspective, less than 10 private clubs produced more caddie loops.

“Admittedly it’s a subsidized program so we’re trying to create a culture or an awareness that wouldn’t otherwise exist,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate, who’s also a CU Evans Scholar alum. “We know the economics of a caddie program at a public facility just don’t mesh. That’s the most important underpinning of the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy: it is subsidized. I think we need to be very sensitive to any unintended consequences of making subsidized caddie programs the norm. I don’t think that should be. Ultimately, we want these independent contractors working for the players. But if we can use the subsidies smartly to kind of fill that pipeline …

“Our intention with that (Solich) program is to generate applicants for the Evans Scholarship. That’s a separate and distinct goal from having healthy caddie programs. Most people in that (Caddie Summit) room recognize the value that our society can benefit from by having kids that are hard-working and that have the ability to communicate — and not (just) on a phone or an app or whatever.”

The Solich Academy, named for philanthropists and ES alums George and Duffy Solich (the latter being the Western Golf Association’s state chairman), isn’t just a caddie program. A major component of the Academy is that all of the caddies are required to attend weekly leadership classes and do volunteer community-service work each summer. And, as Mate noted, the hope is that some of the participants will become good candidates for the Evans Scholarship at CU.

Laura, a former CGA president, certainly has seen how successful the Solich program has been. And he hopes GVR can offer something similar.

“We’ve applied for a grant through the Colorado Golf Foundation about doing what they do at CommonGround — saying ‘Take a caddie, we’ll pay for it,'” Laura said. “The kids really want to loop more. They just don’t have the demand and it’s really frustrating. But if we had all six or eight of our kids waiting to get out and our golf shop was actively trying to push it, they would come four to five days a week if the players are going to take the kid because the base rate is covered.

“Those kind of ways to create demand by eliminating the cost factors, that can work at a public, private, resort — any of those courses. We’re hoping to be able to do that with some financial support. We can double and triple our number of loops if we just have that hurdle (eliminated). That’s why CommonGround is so great because you know you can get a caddie and just pay a tip. A $20 or $30 tip is well worth it, but if someone is looking at a $50 or $60 fee on top of their $50 or $60 public green fee, that’s where a decision is made and most of the time it’s against taking a caddie.”

The Colorado Golf Foundation, by the way, was founded with a $2 million gift from George and Carol Solich.

“We’re trying to get our sea legs around the foundation, but we’re very much open to (Laura’s idea regarding GVR),” Mate said. “I love the (idea of a potential) partnership with The First Tee because they already have kids who know golf. They’re looking for programming for kids who get to be 13-14 years old; that’s when they kind of fizzle out with The First Tee. And I think they lose them because they have to start earning money. So what a great segue — from knowing the game and having the base knowledge (to caddying regularly). I’d love to have a lot of First Tee kids in our program. That would be awesome.

“That’s one other thing that’s being discussed: How can we scale the Solich program nationwide? We’re not saying that; the World Golf Foundation has started a discussion around this. Is there some place for a nationally-supported caddie initiative? The fact that that conversation is going on is encouraging for sure.”

Strong Showing for Caddie Summit: More than 50 people attended last week’s Caddie Summit, presented by the CGA. That included representatives of 18 courses/clubs in Colorado that feature a caddie program.

The Summit is held annually to discuss various issues regarding caddies, including best practices; to release results of the survey of caddie clubs; and give updates on caddie-related programs in the state. That includes the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy and the full-tuition and housing Evans Scholarship.

This time around, there was also a caddie club profile, with head professional Bryan Heim discussing the situation at Columbine Country Club, where a once-thriving program largely went away for a while but has been brought back, to the point that now it features 40-50 caddies accumulating about 1,300 total loops annually.

Also, there was a talk by Boulder-based Evans Scholar alum Jeremy Stroiman, the CEO of a company he and his twin brother Jason run that was named after the scholarship: Evans Senior Investments, which deals with senior housing and skilled nursing solutions.

Heim, for one, always gets a few useful tidbits out of the Caddie Summit.

“If nothing else it gives you a check and balance — some new ideas to say, ‘Hey listen, have we thought about that or that’s maybe a better way of doing something’,” Heim said. “It gets your wheels turning a little bit just to make sure we’ve got that down or we’re doing this.”

Each clubs which sends multiple participants to the Summit receives a $500 grant for its caddie program from the Colorado Golf Foundation.

“I thought it was our best one yet,” Mate said of the 2017 Caddie Summit. “The attendance was great. We didn’t stretch the agenda. Like they say about a vacation, it’s always better when you wanted to stay a little longer. I felt like that best practices discussion could have gone on longer. But I filled up my notepad of notes and I hope everybody else did too.

“There was some inspiration in this one that we haven’t had in the past, with Jeremy (Stroiman). Janene Guzowski (a new CGA board member who chairs the caddie committee) has brought some great new energy. It’s great to have more voices and not just have a few of us drone on. I thought it was very successful.”
 

Stadler won the Colorado Open in his pro debut in 2002 at Sonnenalp Golf Club in Edwards, where his dad, 1982 Masters champion Craig Stadler, caddied for him. Kevin Stadler overcame PGA Tour player Gary Hallberg and Brian Kortan in a playoff at Sonnenalp.

Stadler has played very little on the PGA Tour since the fall of 2014, when he fractured two bones in his left hand. He competed in 2015 at only the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, the Masters and the John Deere Classic. His last PGA Tour event was a year ago, and he’ll have major medical status going into the 2016-17 Tour season.

But when Craig Stadler was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in May, he said Kevin had indicated he was 100 percent recovered at that point.

Kevin Stadler, who also has four Web.com Tour victories to his credit, recorded eight top-25 finishes in the 2013-14 PGA Tour wraparound season, including an eighth-place in the Masters, in addition to ending up second in the European Tour’s Alstom Open de France.

Stadler, winner of the 1999 and 2002 CGA Match Plays, has earned almost $10 million in his PGA Tour career.

Stadler received a sponsor’s exemption for the Colorado Open. He is exempt for the tournament as a past champion, but he didn’t enter before the exempt player deadline.

Stadler will be one of four PGA Tour winners scheduled to compete next week, July 21-24. The others are Keith Clearwater, former University of Colorado golfer Jonathan Kaye and Parker McLachlin.

This year’s CoBank Colorado Open will feature a $250,000 purse, with $100,000 going to the winner.
 

Consider it a variation of the “drive for show, putt for dough” theme. Both portions of the college golf season are important, but it’s what a team does in the spring — more so than the fall — that really gets remembered.

And though “spring” may seem a long way off for Colorado golfers, the spring season will begin for at least one Colorado-based college team this weekend.

The University of Denver men will tee off their second-half schedule Friday and Saturday at the 54-hole, 17-team Arizona Intercollegiate in Tucson. The Pioneer men are one of nine NCAA Division I teams based in Colorado, and all nine will begin their spring seasons before February ends.

And the rubber really meets the road in April, May and early June, when conference championships and NCAA regionals and finals are contested.

Most notable from a Colorado perspective this year are the men’s and women’s NCAA Division II Championship finals, set for May 17-21 at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club and May 18-21 at CommonGround Golf Course, respectively. It will be the first NCAA golf nationals held in Colorado since The Broadmoor last hosted the NCAA Division I men’s championship, in 1969.

As for the local Division I schedule, the Arizona Intercollegiate in which the DU men are competing this weekend marks the first major tournament of the spring season nationwide. College teams will be resuming competition after a three-to-four-month intermission following the fall season.

Among in-state DI schools, the University of Colorado is the top-ranked women’s squad (24th nationally according to Golfweek), while CU is also tops among the men (Golfweek has the Buffs 68th).

The individuals from Colorado and Colorado schools who are top ranked nationally are, for men:

82. Jeremy Paul (pictured above), Colorado (Golfstat)
91. Wyndham Clark of Lone Tree, Oklahoma State (Golfweek)
100. Philip Juel-Berg, Colorado (Golfstat)

And for women:

16. Esther Lee (left), Colorado (Golfweek)
37. Hannah Wood of Highlands Ranch, Oklahoma (Golfstat)
86. Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster, Wake Forest (Golfweek)
138. Kathi Baratta, Denver (Golfweek)
143. Alexis Keating, Colorado (Golfweek)

Here’s a team-by-team rundown on the Colorado-based Division I teams going into the spring portion of the season:

Air Force Men

National Ranking — 184th (Golfweek).

Best Fall Team Finish — Second at Bill Ross Intercollegiate.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Brenden Bone (second), Sunwoo Choi (eighth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Brenden Bone 72.6.

Next tournament — Feb. 28-March 1, Snowman Getaway, Goodyear, Ariz.

Conference Championships — Mountain West, April 22-24 in Tucson, Ariz.

Colorado Men

National Ranking — 68th (Golfweek).

Best Fall Team Finishes — Won Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational, second at Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Philip Juel-Berg (first, second and eighth), Jeremy Paul (first, third and seventh), Ethan Freeman (fifth three times), Ross Macdonald (fifth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Jeremy Paul 70.6.

Next Tournament — Feb. 4-6, Amer Ali Intercollegiate, Big Island, Hawaii.

Conference Championships — Pac-12, April 29-May 1 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Colorado Women

National Ranking — 24th (Golfweek).

Best Fall Team Finishes — Second at East & West Match Play Challenge, fourth at Pac-12 Preview.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Esther Lee (first, fourth and ninth), Alexis Keating (third), Brittany Fan (ninth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Esther Lee 72.6.

Next Tournament — Feb. 13-14, Peg Barnard Stanford Invitational, Stanford, Calif.

Conference Championships — Pac-12, April 18-20 in Pleasanton, Calif.

Colorado State Men

National Ranking — 74th (Golfstat).

Best Fall Team Finishes — Won Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational and Ram Masters Invitational, third at Tucker Intercollegiate, fourth at Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Dominic Kieffer (second, third, sixth), Max Oelfke (second, sixth, seventh), Kyler Dunkle (fourth, fifth, seventh), Jimmy Makloski (eighth), Jake Staiano (eighth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Max Oelfke 71.9.

Next Major Tournament — Feb. 28-March 1, National Invitational, Tucson, Ariz.

Conference Championships — Mountain West, April 22-24 in Tucson, Ariz.

Colorado State Women

National Ranking — 68th (Golfstat).

Best Fall Team Finishes — Fourth at Ron Moore Women’s Intercollegiate.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Allie Andersen (fifth), Sarah Archuleta (eighth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Elizabeth Rau 74.1.

Next Tournament — Feb. 22-23, Gold Rush, Long Beach, Calif.

Conference Championships — Mountain West, April 18-20 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Denver Men

National Ranking — 207th (Golfstat).

Best Fall Team Finish — Fifth at Pacific Invitational.

Best Fall Individual Finish — Chris Korte (fifth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Chris Korte 73.4.

Next Tournament — Jan. 29-30, Arizona Medalist, Tucson, Ariz.

Conference Championships — Summit League, May 1-3 in Newton, Kan.

Denver Women 

National Ranking — 57th (Golfweek).

Best Fall Team Finishes — Won Ron Moore Women’s Intercollegiate, fourth at Golfweek Conference Challenge.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Kathi Baratta (fifth, eighth).

Best Individual Stroke Average in Fall — Kathi Baratta 72.5.

Next Tournament — Feb. 13-14, Peg Barnard Stanford Invitational, Stanford, Calif.

Conference Championships — Summit League, April 18-20 in Nebraska City

Also Notable — The DU women, who have won 12 consecutive conference championships, are favored to make it a baker’s dozen. The Pioneers were recently picked No. 1 in the nine-team Summit League in a midseason poll of the conference’s head coaches. DU is in its third season in the Summit League.

Northern Colorado Men

National Ranking — 202nd (Golfstat).

Best Fall Team Finish — Seventh at Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Joshua Matz (fourth).

Next Tournament — Feb. 8-9, Thunderbird Invitational, St. George, Utah.

Conference Championships — Big Sky, April 29-May 1 in Boulder City, Nev.

Current Ranking Among Big Sky Conference Teams — Fourth out of eight.

Northern Colorado Women

National Ranking — 116th (Golfweek).

Best Fall Team Finish — Eighth at Hawaii Rainbow Wahine Invitational.

Best Fall Individual Finishes — Amanda Myers (third, eighth), Kala Keltz (eighth).

Next Tournament — Feb. 22-24, Grand Canyon Invitational, Goodyear, Ariz.

Conference Championships — Big Sky, April 18-20 in Boulder City, Nev.

Current Ranking Among Big Sky Conference Teams — Second out of 12.