The first ruling he made in the first tournament he ever worked is one he won’t soon forget. It came at the boys 4A state high school tourney more than a dozen years ago.

A competitor hit his ball up against a cart path. With the nearest relief, he had a tree that would interfere with his swing. While Montgomery was sorting out the issue, the player’s father was throwing in his two cents regarding the situation. Suffice it to say the two disagreed on precisely how to proceed.

“I said, ‘Sir, I guarantee we’ll get this and get this right,'” Montgomery recalls.

The player, slightly under the tree after taking relief, ended up hitting his shot onto the green.

“I kind of looked at the father and said, ‘I told you we’d get it right,'” Montgomery said.

A little later, the tournament’s chief rules official Gene Miranda, with whom Montgomery was in contact via radio while making the ruling, came to the site and asked what parent he had heard in the background during the ruling. Montgomery said he didn’t know, but after a little investigating, the player with whom Monty was interacting was Kent Denver’s Gunner Wiebe. Miranda then informed Montgomery that he had been arguing with Mark Wiebe, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour.

“That was funny,” Montgomery said in thinking back on the moment.

Such is the life of a rules official. Over the years, there are going to be moments like those that stay etched in the memory.

On Wednesday night, more than 12 years after working that first event, Montgomery (pictured) had another memorable moment. That was when he received the Jim Topliff On-Course Official of the Year Award from the CGA. The honor — named for Topliff, a longtime tournament director for the CGA who passed away in 2007 — is given out annually to a volunteer rules official who typically works quite a few days and makes an impression while conducting his or her duties.

Montgomery, a 69-year-old lifelong Coloradan, put in 31 days of rules officiating in 2018, according to the CGA, making him one of nine people who worked at least that many days this year — out of the 127 officials on the CGA roster. In a similar vein, a Volunteer of the Year Award is typically also given out at what is now known as the CGA Women’s Golf Summit, which in 2019 will be held March 9 at Pinehurst Country Club.

“It’s truly a deep honor to receive this (Topliff Award),” Montgomery said on Wednesday at Pinehurst, where the CGA held a holiday and retirement celebration for three of its staffers — Gerry Brown, Laura Robinson and Anne Bley. “I know what it stands for and what it goes to. I’m honored someone has recognized my efforts. When I go to a golf course, the days I volunteer, whatever assignment they give me that’s where I go. And they always know I’m going to do what they ask me to do.

“I’m not the best rules official they have, but I am one who will work an assignment and work it to the best of my ability — with usually no complaints.”

Making the honor even more meaningful for Montgomery is that he knew Topliff a bit. When Monty was a senior at Bear Creek High School, he said Topliff taught at nearby Bear Creek Elementary. And Montgomery said Topliff helped found the men’s club at Foothills Golf Course and was it first president. Foothills is Montgomery’s home course and he’s twice been president of the men’s club himself (2006 and ’16).

Greg With, a prominent rules official and a past winner of the Topliff Award, serves on the CGA board of directors and chairs the CGA Rules Committee, which decides on the Topliff Award recipients.

“In Monty’s case, I don’t know of many rules officials that connect with players like he does,” With said on Wednesday. “He’s a big guy, but he’s just like a teddy bear on the course. He’s able to administer the rules in ways that players — particularly junior players — understand, and they get it. So we really appreciate that.

“He’s done this for more than a decade, and he’s worked a lot of days every year. He’s well known at the tournaments he works.

“When I called him, he said something like, ‘I didn’t go searching for this award.’ And I said ‘that’s not how it works. If you go chasing it, you’re never going to get it. This award chased you.’ He’s very deserving.”

Approrpriately, With is among the rules officials Montgomery calls his mentors in recent years — along with Mike Rice, Mike Boster and CGA board member Brad Wiesley.

But it was Dustin Jensen — a onetime director of youth programs for the CGA who went on to become the association’s managing director of operations before returning to North Dakota a year ago — who is responsible for getting Montgomery into officiating in the first place.

You see, when Montgomery first joined the Foothills men’s club board 14 years ago, he volunteered to be on the rules committee, which entailed going to a rules seminar. And the next year, he attended the seminar for a second straight year.

“That year I met Dustin Jensen,” Montgomery said. “Dustin said, ‘It’s your second year here. Maybe you should think about coming out with us’ as a rules official. I said I’m not all that good. He said all you have to do is learn how to work a radio. We’ll help you with the rules. You can call on the radio and say you need help. So Dustin talked me into it.”

Nowadays, while Montgomery works the CGA’s most prestigious tournaments — the Amateur and the Match Play, in addition to senior majors — about two-thirds of his officiating days are devoted to junior golf events.

“My best times in the CGA are working with the kids — the Junior Golf Alliance (of Colorado events),” he said. “When they look up at you and say, ‘What do you mean I’ve got to drop my ball on the concrete? It’s a brand-new Titleist.’ I say, ‘Well, son, sorry about that. This is the rule’ and explain it to them. I may take too much time than I should, but with the kids, every situation is an opportunity for education. The parents will come up and say, ‘Thank you.’ That right there, that’s what I work for — the thank yous. You’re helping write my paycheck.

“Some guys say they get their pay by picking up golf balls — they get all their Pro V-1s that way. But to me it’s when a parent or a player comes up and says ‘thank you. We really appreciate the time you took to come out here and volunteer.’ What even means more is when I’m working an adult tournament and one of the players say, ‘Thank you for being here.’ That’s the satisfaction I get.”

While many officials measure their ability as a rules officials largely by how they score on the PGA/USGA Rules of Golf exam, Montgomery fully admits that isn’t his forte.

“The best I’ve ever done is 75 (percent) out of three times” taking test, he said. “I cannot take written tests because I stare at this bright white paper with the bright light up there. After about an hour I can’t read the page anymore. I’m very poor on doing written tests, but on oral tests I’ll hang in there with everybody. I think they’re starting to realize he is smarter than what his scores indicate.”

Montgomery, like all rules official, have a big change coming, with the new Rules of Golf modernization taking effect on Jan. 1. Suffice it to say Montgomery knows he’ll be devoting a lot of time to studying the rules between now and the spring.

“I don’t have it down pat (yet),” he said. “I’m pretty apprehensive. I’m signed up for the 3 1/2-day rules school in March. I’ve been to a four-hour (CGA) rules seminar. Now I’m starting to read the book and study the book. Mike Rice is sending me links and saying go to the USGA site. They have all kinds of videos you can watch.

“My objective before the first of the year is to read the rule book from front to back. Everyone I talk to says the hardest thing is finding the rule in the (new) book. Robert (Duke, the CGA’s director of rules and competitions) made a great analogy: You go on Christmas break, come back and somebody has reorganized your filing cabinets. But the more I look at it, it makes perfect logical sense of how the rules have been reorganized. I’m confident I’ll be ready to roll come this spring.”

Montgomery, who retired from the UC Health Sciences Center — where he sold medical and dental instruments to students — about 14 years ago, doesn’t by any means limit his time on the golf course to officiating. For many years in retirement, he’d play roughly 100 rounds of golf annually. And though heart problems have curtailed that somewhat, he’ll still get in almost 50 this year. And while he says he hasn’t played to it in 2018, he owns a 9.8 handicap.

By the way, as you might expect, Monty is Montgomery’s nickname. But it’s slightly more complicated than that. He said everybody outside Morrison — his hometown since 1956 — calls him Monty. But in Morrison, he goes by Gary since his dad is the original Monty.

For the CGA’s part, it can just call him the 2018 Jim Topliff Award winner.
 

Kennedy spent his professional career in the law field — as a criminal investigator, a deputy district attorney, a lawyer in private practice, then 16 years as a District Court Judge based in Colorado Springs, his lifelong home.

So the fact that the University of Colorado Law graduate has served as a volunteer rules official in Colorado over the past five years, playing an ever-larger role since retiring from the bench in 2015, makes perfect sense.

“The Rules of Golf — there are only 34 — but you have a huge number of decisions,” Kennedy said by phone on Friday. “The law is very much the same. The statutes that define criminal law, for example, are relatively small in number, but there are tens of thousands of appellate court decisions which interpret those. It’s very much the same discipline (in golf) of understanding what the rule is, but also understanding how they’re interpreted and how they’re applied in everyday circumstances.

“I think it was a pretty easy transition for me because I spent my entire adult life dealing with the law, dealing with the rules and learning how to understand them and apply them to the factual situation that existed at that time. As I told people when I first started doing this, I’m used to calling balls and strikes. That’s what I’ve been doing all my adult life. My mind works in a way that I’m able to grasp some of that stuff just because that’s what I’ve been trained to do all my adult life.”

The CGA tracks the number of dates worked by volunteer rules officials in a given year — counting CGA championships and qualifiers, USGA championships and qualifiers, CoBank Colorado Open championships and qualifiers, Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado tournaments, other junior events, and Colorado-based college tournaments — and more than 50 officials worked at least one day in 2017 on the CGA spreadsheet.

Impressively, nine people chalked up at least 25 days in 2017: Greg With (46 days), John Sova (37), Tim Hersee (33), Mike Boster (32), Mike Rice (31), Dennie Runge (31), Kennedy (26), former CGA president Jim Magette (25) and Brad Wiesley (25).

The CWGA, which officially joined forces with the CGA at the beginning of this year, also has a large group of volunteer officials and it presents its Volunteer of the Year Award at the Women’s Annual Meeting, which this year will be held March 3 at the Inverness Hotel & Conference Center.

For his part, Kennedy was recently presented the Jim Topliff Award as the CGA’s on-course rules official of the year for 2017. The honor is named for Topliff, a longtime tournament director for the CGA who passed away in 2007. Of the aforementioned rules officials, Hersee (2015), Wiesley (2012), With (2011), Rice (2008) and Sova (2006) have received the award.

Kennedy took on considerably more responsibility last year in serving as the chief official for a handful of events, including the Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational that the University of Colorado hosts at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie. In 2017, he was also part of ruling crews at multi-day tournaments such as the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open and Colorado Senior Open, the Colorado Junior PGA Championship and other college tournaments.

“From the first of May until the middle of October (in 2017) I spent a fair amount of time on golf courses,” he said. “I worked a lot more than I played golf this past year, there’s no doubt about that.”

The first step in Kennedy’s increased role — following his retirement from the bench in the summer of 2015 — was taking a rules exam at the end of a PGA/USGA Rules of Golf Workshop in 2016. Kennedy recalls he scored a 96 on the exam.

“I studied pretty dang hard,” the 69-year-old said. “I told people it was the hardest exam I’ve taken since I took the bar exam. And I studied about as hard for it as I did for the bar as well.”

Besides the basic appeal of being a rules official given his legal background, Kennedy was attracted to the position for a couple of other reasons.

“I knew I wanted something to keep me active and involved and outdoors,” he said. “I’m an outdoors guy. I golf and I hike and I bike. I spend as much of my leisure time as I can outdoors. (Kennedy is pictured at Canyonlands in southeast Utah.)

“Being on the golf course seemed to be something worthwhile and you feel like you’re giving something back to the game. As a judge I spent a lot of time working with kids who had come from troubled homes so I’d always had a soft spot in my heart for working with kids. It seemed like a natural fit to work with juniors on the golf course as well.” (Besides his work on the course, Kennedy is a former chairman of the board for the YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region.)

And there are social and intellectual aspects to rules officiating as well.

“I had an interest in it and it was a good niche,” said Kennedy, a former high school golfer (Palmer HS in Colorado Springs) who plays to an 11.8 USGA Handicap Index out of the Garden of the Gods Club. “The guys that I work with are guys very much like me — my same age group, avid golfers who were looking to give something back to the game. Plus, I’m a retired judge and I wanted to have something that continued to challenge me intellectually.”

After working some events as a chief official where another person of CRO caliber was on hand to help out as need be, Kennedy was on his own in that role at the CU Mark Simpson Invite in September. And, as often occurs, an issue came up that proved challenging.

On the 12th green at Colorado National, Kennedy said when the grounds crew was mowing, something had come lose from the mower and it had created a small trench — maybe a quarter-inch wide and not quite that deep — running right across the center of the green.

“None of us knew how to treat that,” Kennedy said. “You get that kind of oddball thing that I hadn’t seen before. That was the first time I was the chief official so I had to make the final decision. That was interesting. What I did was to let players repair (the damage) as if it were a ball mark in the line of their putt so the ball wasn’t hopping across this trench. I don’t know if that was the right decision or not, but that was the only thing I could come up with that made sense for me to do. I’d be curious to see what the USGA guys would say that we would do about that.”

Kennedy, and many rules officials like him, face more challenges ahead as the Rules modernization plan announced almost a year ago by the USGA and the R&A will take effect in 2019.

“I haven’t spent a lot of time really digging into the weeds with the new rules,” Kennedy said. “Some of the things certainly needed to be updated. I don’t mind having to learn new stuff; I like learning new stuff. Some of the stuff might create some challenges for the officials just because it’s going to be a change, and most of us have been playing the game under these rules or using them as officials for a long time.

“The purpose is trying to speed up the pace of play and also make (the game’s rules) seem like they’re fair. You have the publicized things like Lexi Thompson losing (the 2017 ANA Inspiration after incurring four penalty strokes). and the Dustin Johnson thing (at the 2016 U.S. Open, which he still won). Some people look at that and say, ‘Those rules are just unfair’ and it might cast a negative view on the game of golf because it seems like the punishment does not match the crime — like a quarter-turn of a golf ball that gives you no advantage. My feeling is they’re trying to make the Rules of Golf appear more fair. If you have a minor infraction, you shouldn’t have something that costs you a major golf tournament, like what happened to Lexi Thompson.

“I hope it accomplishes what they want — that people can look at it and say that’s fair and we avoid some of the slow-play issues which sometime are caused by (rulings).”

Spoken like someone who knows a little something about rules.
  

Rich Langston has lived in Colorado for about 45 years now, but there’s no mistaking his West Texas roots.

He can regale anyone within earshot with mesmerizing tales or anecdotes, complete with that distinctive West Texas twang. And, after 23 seasons as a highly-regarded volunteer rules official in Colorado, he certainly has plenty of material.

For instance, ask him about his most unusual ruling, and he’ll recount a story from the final round of a CGA Public Links Championship in the mid-1990s. That was when he was stationed at the par-3 16th hole at Hyland Hills Golf Course.

He noted how a competitor hit his tee shot into a greenside bunker, and when he took his stance, the ball moved. The player asked Langston how to proceed, and Langston told him to replace the ball and add a stroke. The golfer replaced the ball, took his stance and … once again his ball moved.

“He turned around and I looked at him and he said, ‘What the hell?'” Langston remembers. “At that time, probably a 2-foot-diameter big greenback turtle raises up out of the bunker (from beneath the surface of the sand). Part of his stance was probably mashing that turtle and underneath the sand she was moving around and raised up out of there. I said, ‘Go to a different part of the bunker, drop your ball and forget about that one stroke we talked about.’ We got to looking and I raked some sand and I saw some eggs. I called the golf shop. Eventually 74-75 (turtle) eggs were pulled out of there.

“It was funny as could be. … And by this time there were about three groups backed up on the 16th tee. But it’s sort of like when you make a birdie putt on 18 — something always keeps you coming back. Well, that’s what always kept me coming back.”

But after being a mainstay as a rules official in Colorado since 1993, Langston won’t be coming back in that role — at least not on a regular basis. Langston, who turns 75 years old this week, recently sold his house in Lakewood and will be relocating on Nov. 2 or 3 with his life partner Janet to Bartlesville, Okla., just north of Tulsa.

Though he plans to return next year to work the Colorado PGA Professional Championship and possibly the CoBank Colorado Senior Open, he’ll no longer be the fixture in Colorado golf he has been. That will leave a big void, considering that he estimates he’s devoted about 1,250 tournament days over his lifetime as a rules official — not counting travel days.

“Rich is a workhorse. He carries a lot of the load,” said Mike Boster, a fellow prominent chief rules official. “It’s not going to be easy to make it up. Losing Joe (Salvo, the CGA Rules Commitee chairman who passed away) in April and Rich in the fall, we’re going to be looking for talent. Rich has just been a mainstay of our rules group. Nobody is irreplaceable but it’s not going to be easy.”

How important has Langston been to Colorado golf? Important enough that the Colorado PGA granted him honorary membership, which Langston calls “the coolest, neatest, nicest thing that I’ve ever had in my life.” (At left, Langston was presented with a flag, signed by the players, at the Colorado PGA Professional Championship by executive director Eddie Ainsworth.) And important enough that the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame gave Langston its distinguished service award.

“I’m not sure how you say thank you for all the stuff he’s done for the CGA,” executive director Ed Mate said after Langston worked his final event for the association, the Mid-Amateur, early this month at Lakewood Country Club. “It’s incredible. I’ve never met somebody who loves golf as much. What he does as a rules official is his outlet for that love of the game. He’s just as good as they come.”

Langston has run the gamut with his golf volunteerism as a rules official over the years, working events run by the CGA, CJGA, Colorado PGA, AJGA, USGA, Colorado Open championships, Colorado High School Activities Association, Junior America’s Cup, Kansas Golf Association and college events. He plans to look into helping out with selected Oklahoma Golf Association tournaments, but no longer will work anywhere close to the 70-some tournament days — with the accompanying 30-some travel days — he’s worked this year.

“Even if I didn’t have this move being planned, I would still cut back this coming year,” he said. “And it’s not because I’m an old guy. I’m still 10 foot tall and bullet-proof (said with a smile). But it’s time. When I shut my business down 11 years ago, it was time to do it. There was no other reason.”

Langston admits that his hectic rules official schedule has taken its toll.

“This last year, I think in the month of May and into June I was on the golf course or traveling to and from a golf course 26 out of 34 days,” he said. “I was tired. There were a couple of days I really wasn’t ready to be on the golf course. It wasn’t because of the event or the people or the players; it was me. I was tired. And one time during that stretch there was 13 straight days. Maybe I’d have liked to play a round or two of golf in the springtime. I mean, sometime you’ve got to take your laundry to the cleaners. Sometimes you’re hard-pressed to find time to go get the oil changed in your car.”

But there’s also a care-free reason for cutting back.

“I’m going to be 75. If you hit ‘three-quarters’, what you ought to do is just go play like Lewis and Clark,” Langston said. “You just start a brand-new adventure. And Janet is game for it. I’ve been in Denver for 45 or 47 years, and she’s been here for 24 years. Denver has been good to us, but I’m not going to miss certain things about Denver, and there’s going to be things that I will miss. But as far as taking an hour and 15 minutes to drive crosstown at 6 in the morning because of traffic, I can live without that.”

Langston, who retired 11 years ago after owning a construction business, took a shine to Bartlesville a number of years ago when he was visiting Bryan Heim, a former Cherry Hills Country Club assistant professional who had taken a job as PGA head professional at Hillcrest Country Club in the Oklahoma town. Heim has since returned to Colorado as PGA head professional at Columbine Country Club.

Langston was working the Ping Junior Invitational in Oklahoma when he made the side trip to visit with Heim and his family.

“I just really liked what I saw in Bartlesville,” he said. “It’s a town of 35,000 but the feel of the town is more like a town of 300,000 or 400,000. … They’ve always taken care of the town. So many smaller communities anymore — especially those outside a metro area — have experienced some decay. I hate it; it’s not what I grew up with. In Bartlesville, they’ve taken care of it nicely. And it’s an affordable town.

“Bartlesville felt right. (But) I don’t know anybody there; I don’t know a soul.”

After getting in only four rounds of golf so far in 2015, Langston is looking forward to playing more, rather than just observing others playing. (Though he didn’t do it this year, Langston has shot his age — or better — about a half-dozen times.) And Hillcrest CC in Bartlesville is a Perry Maxwell design, and Langston loves courses designed by Maxwell.

Without a doubt, though, many golfers in Colorado will miss the thin Texan who has long made the Centennial state his home. That’s especially true for the thousands of junior players — and former junior players — Langston has impacted over the years.

“If you find (tournament players) who are in their 20s, 30s, even 40s, they know Rich from being a rules official and being so personal and personable,” said fellow chief rules official Greg With. “He knows every one of them.”

Langston (left, filling divots at Lakewood Country Club during the recent CGA Mid-Amateur) remembers silencing the room at a pre-tournament banquet for the 1999 Junior America’s Cup held at Perry Park Country Club.

“I said I do not enjoy being on the golf course with a bunch of kids,” he recalled. “But I love being out there with young players — and there is a difference.

“I don’t in any way, shape, fashion or form think that I have helped ‘sculpt their youth’. Hey, that’s for their mom and dad to do. But I enjoy being around young people. What I’ve always found is, you treat them with respect, and it comes right straight back to you.”

One of those instances came at the 2013 Ram Masters Invitational at Fort Collins Country Club, where a one-stroke penalty incurred on the final hole by freshman Jimmy Makloski, who was making his college debut, made the difference between host Colorado State finishing second or forcing a playoff for the team title. Langston was the rules official who dealt with the matter, one in which Makloski addressed his ball on the green and the ball subsequently changed position. When Makloski and then-assistant coach Bret Guetz acknowledged that Makloski had addressed the ball, Langston informed them it would be a one-stroke penalty.

“About two weeks later and I saw Ray (Makloski), Jimmy’s dad,” Langston said. “I said that was probably one of the toughest decisions I ever got brought into. Ray looked at me and said, ‘We were glad it was you.’ That was as big a compliment as a person could ever have. In all likelihood Jimmy would have been able to secure the (team) victory for CSU (if not for the penalty). You’ve got to remember this was his freshman year and his first (college) tournament. There’s not many people around that exhibited the class that Jimmy showed and that Bret showed. But you know what? In this business that’s what I’ve grown to expect.”

And people in Colorado golf have known what to expect from Langston (left) — nothing less than his all.

“I remember once I teed off (for a round of golf) and my phone rang,” he recalled. “I’m walking down the fairway talking to a member of the (Colorado PGA) who was on the Western Slope and he had a member-guest four-ball going on (and had a rules issue). It was important to him that he get it right. For God’s sake, if you can get something right by making a telephone call … it takes more maturity to do that than it does to make a wrong decision. I’ve always told every pro I’ve dealt with, ‘Don’t ever hesitate to call me.’ I don’t care what day of the week it is; that’s why I gave you my cell number. You owe it to your constituency: Get it right.”

And Langston can be assured as he leaves Colorado that he got it right.
 

The CGA, CWGA and CJGA honored more than 100 of the year’s top performers Sunday at the Colorado Golf Awards Brunch at Pinehurst Country Club in Denver.

Among those saluted were the players of the year, headed by Zahkai Brown (CGA) and Somin Lee (CWGA). Brown, a senior on the Colorado State University golf team, staged a big final-round comeback to win the CGA Stroke Play Championship. Lee, a freshman on the Pepperdine University golf team, claimed the CWGA Match Play title, defeating CWGA Stroke Play champion Brooke Collins in the final.

In addition to the traditional awards given out, a new honor, named for former CGA director of youth programs Dustin Jensen, went to a junior golfer who has displayed outstanding character, unique dedication and perseverance. The inaugural Dustin Jensen Award was presented to Dani Urman, a junior at Cherry Creek High School. (Urman is pictured above with Jensen.)

Urman battled back from bone cancer, but not before it resulted in her left knee and part of her thigh bone being replaced by a titanium rod. Despite needing a golf cart to make it around the golf course — and using crutches to get to and from her ball — Urman finished 16th individually in the 5A girls state high school tournament and helped Cherry Creek claim the team title.

Also recognized Sunday were the CJGA’s best, both on the course and in the classroom.

Here’s a brief rundown on Sunday’s honorees:

— CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year: The CGA Stroke Play Championship dates back to 1937, but seldom has a champion rallied in the final round from the size of deficit Brown (pictured at left) faced this year. The CSU golfer trailed by six with 18 holes remaining, but a front-nine 30 and a 66 overall, combined with a 75 by 54-hole leader David Schroeder gave Brown a three-stroke victory.

The Arvada golfer also was medalist in U.S. Amateur qualifying, then finished 13th in the stroke play portion of the Amateur itself before losing in the first round of match play.

In addition, Brown placed third in the CGA Public Links Championship and was a semifinalist in the CGA Match Play.

— CWGA Player of the Year: After two straight years of being CWGA Junior Player of the Year, Lee graduated to the association’s top player honor regardless of age. In winning the CWGA Match Play, the Denver-based golfer defeated Collins — winner of the 2011 CWGA Stroke Play — in the finals at CommonGround Golf Course.

Lee (pictured at left) also was the low amateur finisher in the HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open, sharing sixth place overall. And she was medalist in U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links qualifying and made it to the round of 32 at the national tournament.

— CGA Mid-Amateur Player of the Year: Former CGA Player of the Year Steve Irwin earned the 25-and-older honor this time around. The former University of Colorado golfer posted top-10 finishes in the CGA Stroke Play and Mid-Amateur and was a quarterfinalist in the CGA Match Play. But by far the highlight of his year was qualifying for the U.S. Open, a tournament his father, Hale, won three times.

Making it to the U.S. Open — where Steve missed the cut — earned him spots in the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Mid-Amateur.

— CWGA Senior Player of the Year: Ever since she turned 50, Kim Eaton has won this award, now making it three straight. The only difference this time around is that she wasn’t also the CWGA Player of the Year.

Eaton posted a top-10 finish in the CWGA Stroke Play, but where she really made her mark was in USGA championships. She made it to the quarterfinals of the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur and to the round of 32 the next week at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur.

In the CWGA Brassie Championship, Eaton teamed with Tami Holt to win the title by 10 shots.

— CGA Senior Player of the Year: Harry Johnson nearly made some history in late September. Just shy of his 62nd birthday, Johnson led the CGA Mid-Amateur — a tournament for players 25 and older — on the final nine holes. Alas, a 5-foot par putt that horseshoed out of the cup on the 17th hole proved the difference as he finished a stroke behind champion Keith Humerickhouse.

Johnson was also second-low amateur at the HealthOne Colorado Senior Open and made it to the quarterfinals of the CGA Senior Match Play. He earned the senior title at the CGA Western Chapter Championship.

— CWGA Junior Player of the Year: This was a breakout year for Allie Johnston of Castle Rock, who will be playing her college golf at Texas-San Antonio starting in 2012. Johnston dominated the CWGA Junior Stroke Play, winning by eight strokes the week after claiming an American Junior Golf Association tournament title.

Johnston also placed second individually at the prestigious Mary Cave Cup and qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Publinks and the U.S. Girls’ Junior.

— CGA Junior Player of the Year: Steven Kupcho of Greeley finished his junior career on a high note. Shortly after winning his second consecutive Colorado Junior PGA Championship, Kupcho cruised to a six-shot victory in the CGA Junior Stroke Play. In addition, the current University of Northern Colorado golfer placed seventh in the CGA Stroke Play and tied for second in the CJGA Tournament of Champions.

— CWGA Most Improved Junior Player of the Year: Taylor Buck of CommonGround Golf Course took her handicap from a 2.0 in mid-March to a plus-1.9 in mid-September to claim this CWGA honor.

— Jim Topliff On-Course Rules Official of the Year — Greg With from Ptarmigan Country Club.

— Dustin Jensen Award (for a junior golfer who displays outstanding character and unique dedication to the game of golf) — Dani Urman.

Here are the other junior players and scholars recognized by the CJGA:

2011 CJGA ALL-STARS (pictured)

Jack Adolfson
Christian Agelopoulos
Delaney Benson
Lindsey Benson
Katie Berrian
Jack Castiglia
Amy Chitkoksoong
SeungHa Choi
Jenna Chun
Troy Dangler
Delaney Elliott
Chase Federico
Ethan Freeman
Cameron Harrell
Tanner Jenson
Allie Johnston
Caroline Jordaan
Marie Jordaan
Kathleen Kershisnik
Cade Kilkenny
Jackson Klutznick
Jennifer Kupcho
Steven Kupcho
Shinwoo Lee
Shannon Lubar
Jimmy Makloski
Sydney Merchant
Benjamin Moore
Cole Nygren
AJ Ott
Adara Pauluhn
Christopher Raap
Calli Ringsby
James Ringsby
Henry Rock
Morgan Sahm
Amisha Singh
Dani Urman
Gillian Vance
Mary Weinstein
Coby Welch
Tyler Zhang
Ben Zimmerman

2011 CJGA ACADEMIC ALL-STARS

Girls 14-18
Andrea Ballou
Mackenzie Cohen
Samantha Barker
Alexandra O’Laughlin
Na Youn Kim
Alexandra Briggs
Jamie Griffin
Megan McCambridge
Sonny Scheer
Margo Liebold
Alexandra Trask
Margret Geolat
Heather Kroll Schoonover
Allie Johnston
Kelly Moran
Calli Ringsby

Girls 11-13
Jennifer Kupcho
Adara Pauluhn
Julia Bossi
Delaney Benson
Emilee Strausburg
Madison McCambridge
Hannah More
Kylee Sullivan
Abigail Humbach
Mariah Ehrman
Nicole Backman
Zarena Brown
Sydney Gillespie
Kacey Godwin

Girls 10 & Under
Lindsey Benson
Katie Berrian

Boys 14-18
Steven Kupcho
Gustav Lundquist
Graham McCoy
Kevin Wohlfarth
David Oraee
Austin Rowe
Lawrence Anaya
Kobe Padilla
Nicholas Reisch
Jackson Stimple
Patrick Kundracik
Benjamin Rippley
Joseph Lee
Bejamin Garcia
Alec Walters
Kyle Strain
Austin Preiss
Andrew Howe
Hunter Lee
Jack Adolfson
Hayden Nicholaides
Blake Young
Alexander Liss
Alex Langdon
Scott Rosas
Ryan Pettegrew
James Clements
Peter Catterall
Colin Prater
Kolton Kyne
Michael Allgood
Sam Rock
Todd Millard
Dylan Wonnacott
Jack Cummings
Steven Gritz
Colby Bundy
Jackson Elliott
Grant Rogers

Boys 11-13
Davis Bryant
John Staiano
Brendan Benson
Kevin Liao
Nicholas Villano
Arthur Zabronsky
Cameron Allen
AJ Ott
Tyler Zhang
Luke Travins
Nicholas Leibold

Boys 10 & Under
Ryan Liao
Roger Nakagawa
Rhett Fruitman
Daniel Pearson
Henry Rock
Roman Hamilton