Weather-permitting, of course.

Snow prevented the Four-Ball from being held in early May, but it’s back on the schedule for Friday through Sunday (Oct. 7-9) at Legacy Ridge Golf Course in Westminster.

A total of 45 two-person teams are entered in the 54-hole scratch best-ball stroke-play event.

Seven past CGA Four-Ball champions are entered, but just one intact team of past winners: Keith Humerickhouse and Jared Bickling, the 2014 champs from Gypsum Creek Golf Course. Other former winners of the Four-Ball scheduled to compete are two-time champions Steve Irwin (teaming with Barry Erwin) and Jon Lindstrom (with Richard Bradsby), along with Alex Buecking (with Trent Isgrig), James Richardson (with Justin Gold), and Michael Love (with Brian McCloy).

In May, Buecking advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, with his national teammate Jason Enloe of Dallas.

Also entered at Legacy Ridge are 2015 CGA Match Play champion Nick Nosewicz (teaming with Michael Bartley), and Ben Sherlund and Zach Fowlds, who qualifed together for the 2016 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.

For Friday’s tee times for the CGA Four-Ball, CLICK HERE.

It will be four-ball galore over the next two weeks, both locally and nationally.

Between now and May 13, four big four-ball championships will be contested in Colorado or by the USGA, with Colorado competitors involved. First up are the separate CGA Four-Ball and Senior Four-Ball tournaments, the first CGA championships of 2015, set for Friday through Sunday (May 1-3). Then the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball will be held May 2-6 in San Francisco. Last but not least, the first U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball will be played May 9-13 in Bandon, Ore.

(It should be noted that though the CWGA won’t have a four-ball event in the next couple of weeks, it holds three four-ball tournaments annually: the Mashie, Brassie and Niblick.

The men’s and women’s U.S. Four-Balls are the first additions to the USGA championship schedule since 1987.

Here’s a brief rundown of the four-ball events — which are essentially two-person better-balls, either in stroke play or match play — that are set for the next two weeks:

— CGA Four-Ball at Legacy Ridge Golf Course in Westminster and CGA Senior Four-Ball at Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton, each 54-hole event running Friday through Sunday (May 1-3).

A total of 92 players (46 teams) are registered for the Four-Ball at Legacy Ridge. While 2014 champions Keith Humerickhouse and Jared Bickling won’t return as a team — Humerickhouse is in the field for the U.S. Four-Ball — Bickling will play at Legacy Ridge with new partner Stephen Baxter.

Other former champions in the field are Jon Lindstrom (2002 and ’12), Steve Irwin (2004 and ’09), Alex Buecking (2009), Dave Johnson (2006), Jim Doidge (2005) and Pat Diaz (2004). Irwin will team with Diaz again this year. Doidge will partner with Michael Harrington, the 2014 CGA Player of the Year.

In the Senior Four-Ball at Todd Creek, 102 competitors (51 teams) 50 and older are signed up. Included are defending champions David Delich and Bruce Hogg, who prevailed by three strokes last year. Also back are 2013 winners Kelly Crone and Larry Netherton, who also claimed the title in 2009.

Other former champs in the field are Daniel Dymerski (2012), John Applegate (2011), Sean Forey (2003 and ’08) and Scott Radcliffe (2003). Forey and Radcliffe will team up again this year.

To access scoring over the weekend, click on the following: OPEN DIVISION, SENIOR DIVISION.

— U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at the Olympic Club in San Francisco May 2-6.

A total of 4,468 golfers (2,234 teams) submitted entries, and qualifying was held at 51 sites from last August through March.

The field at the Olympic Club will feature 128 teams, which will play 36 holes of stroke play, with the top 32 teams advancing to match play beginning on May 4.

Five teams in the championship include at least one Coloradan:

Robert Polk of Parker and Bill Fowler of Lakewood

Alex Kephart of Colorado Springs and former Colorado Springs resident Nick Tarasiewicz

Keith Humerickhouse of Eagle and Tom Abell of Oregon, Wis.

Jeff Chapman of Denver and Andrew Tapia of Raton, N.M.

Gus Lundquist of Parker and Trevor Sluman of Rochester, N.Y.

Polk and Fowler, both 50-somethings, shared medalist honors in qualifying at Colorado Golf Club with Kephart and Tarasiewicz last September. (The four are pictured together above.) Polk, 59, will be the oldest player in the field at the Olympic Club.

Lundquist and Sluman are University of Louisville teammates, playing for coach Mark Crabtree, a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer. Sluman is a nephew of Champions Tour player Jeff Sluman. They were medalists in an Oct. 8 qualifier in Mason, Ohio.

Humerickhouse and Abell were medalists in an Oct. 1 qualifier in Hartford, Wis.

— U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes in Oregon May 9-13.

Qualifying for the inaugural Women’s Four-Ball took place at 28 sites from August through March.

Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster and Gillian Vance of Lakewood (left) will take a break from the high school season to play in the national championship. They shared medalist honors last October in a qualifier at Heritage at Westmoor in Westminster.

Kupcho, the 2014 CWGA Player of the Year, will play college golf at Wake Forest in the fall, while Vance will be on the University of Colorado roster.

All told at Bandon, 64 teams will play two rounds of stroke play, with the low 32 teams advancing to match play, which begins May 11.
 

Three holes earlier, Keith Humerickhouse had uncharacteristically bladed a bunker shot over the green. Now, on the 18th hole at Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton, with the CGA Four-Ball Championship on the line, the left-hander remembered his poor shot all too well.

With a narrow strip of green running away from him, a big lake on the other side of the putting surface, and his playing partner having hit into the water, the former playing professional worked a little magic.

He cozied his sand shot down to within 2 feet of the hole and made the putt for a birdie.

That gave Humerickhouse and partner Jared Bickling a one-stroke victory in the season-opening CGA Four-Ball.

“The shot of the tournament for me was the bunker shot on 18,” said Humerickhouse, winner of the last four CGA Mid-Amateur titles. “That bunker shot was awesome. That (bladed sand shot on 15) was basically my last thought going into that bunker shot. And the (one on 15) was a cakewalk compared to that one — no green, the slant going right toward the water. My partner hit it in the water, so I was like, ‘Here we go.’ But the shot (pictured at left) came off awesome.” 

It led to the third consecutive birdie by Humerickhouse and to his sixth CGA title, while Bickling won his first.

Humerickhouse, who plays out of Glenwood Springs Golf Club, and Bickling, from Gypsum Creek Golf Course, shot the low round of the tournament, an 8-under-par 64, on Sunday to rally for the championship.

Second-round leaders Jon Lindstrom and Richard Bradsby of Lakewood Country Club pulled into a tie for the top spot with a birdie on the 15th hole.

But after Lindstrom drained an 18-foot birdie putt on 16, Humerickhouse holed a 15-foot birdie to keep things all square. Humerickhouse then sank an 8-foot birdie on the 17th hole to give his team the lead for good. And on 18, after Bickling had hit his second shot into the water, Humerickhouse showed steady nerves making his winning birdie.

“This is awesome,” said Bickling, who is 38 years old, like Humerickhouse. “This is our third year playing this event. The first year we were garbage, the second year we were not quite so garbage, and then this year … We don’t come out here to just play golf; we come here to win.”

Humerickhouse and Bickling’s 64 on Sunday gave them an 18-under-par 198 total for three days.

Lindstrom and Bradsby closed with a 66 in the scratch best-ball event to place second at 199. Nick Nosewicz and Heath Andersen of Meadow Hills Golf Course finished third at 202.

Humerickhouse and Bickling started Sunday with a bogey, and Humerickhouse bogeyed the second hole. But Bickling’s 20-foot birdie there gave the team a spark, and the two made nine birdies on the last 17 holes.

“That (birdie) calmed us both down,” said Bickling, pictured in the dark shirt at left, with Humerickhouse.

Humerickhouse, who shot 70 on his own ball each of the three days, relished sharing the title with Bickling.

“We play a lot of golf together,” the left-hander said. “With him as my partner, I feel like we can contend every time we play. To finally get it done, it’s awesome. I feel really good for him because it’s his first one. Every time you win one of these it’s great because the field is so good.

“We played really good as a team today — really good. If somebody was in trouble, we picked each other up. It was ham and eggs for sure today.”

For the CGA Senior Four-Ball Championship story, CLICK HERE.

For CGA Four-Ball score details, CLICK HERE.

CGA Four-Ball Championship

At Par-72 Todd Creek GC in Thornton

Jared Bickling,Gypsum Creek GC/Keith Humerickhouse,Glenwood Springs GC–68-66-64–198
Richard Bradsby,Lakewood CC/Jon Lindstrom,Lakewood CC–68-65-66–199
Nick Nosewicz,Meadow Hills GC/Heath Andersen,Meadow Hills GC–66-68-68–202
Brian Richmeier,Meadow Hills GC/Andy Dannewitz,Meadow Hills GC–66-69-70–205
Alex Buecking,Columbine CC/Paul Robinson,Columbine CC–68-68-71–207
Pat Diaz,Meridian GC/Scott Shore,Meridian GC–72-67-68–207
Tim Fitzgerald,Meridian GC/James Kurtenbach,South Suburban GC–66-73-69–208
Blake Anderson,Omni Interlocken Resort/Tom Sweetman,Omni Interlocken Resort–67-71-70–208
Gary Driber,Denver Amateur Golf Tour Club/Dallas Massey,South Suburban GC–69-69-71–209
Paul Erdman,Colorado National GC/Jeff Searing,Canongate Colorado–69-69-71–209
Christopher Wilson,Eisenhower GC/Jeff Chapman,Inverness GC–70-68-72–210
Greg Braford,CommonGround GC/Jason Dunkle,Pradera, the Club at–66-72-72–210
Andy Brooks,CommonGround GC/Kade Sessions,CommonGround GC–70-70-71–211
Dean Siskowski,CommonGround GC/Greg Speer,CommonGround GC–69-75-68–212
Tom Richardson,Highlands Ranch GC/James M Richardson,South Suburban GC–71-68-73–212
Shawn Mercer,Lake Valley GC/Jeremy W Deems,Lake Valley GC–72-73-67–212
John J Grillion,CommonGround GC/Nick Simmons,CommonGround GC–68-72-73–213
Ryan Aweida,Colorado National GC/Erik Helton,Colorado National GC–71-70-73–214
Bob Athey,CC of Colorado/Chris Pratz,Springs Ranch GC–68-72-74–214
Chris Tenan,Harmony Club/Keith Atkins,Harmony Club–71-71-73–215
John Perry,Highland Meadows GC/David Hunn,Collindale GC–71-70-75–216
Bert Sartori,Todd Creek GC/Guy Hollowell,Todd Creek GC–76-71-69–216
Tristan Sanders,CommonGround GC/Tim Kratz,CommonGround GC–73-71-73–217
Thomas Russo,Canongate Colorado/Aaron Brown,Canongate Colorado–78-68-71–217
Adam Thoutt,Legacy Ridge GC/Brad Hernandez,Heritage at Westmoor–72-74-72–218
James Richardson,CommonGround GC/Brian O’Connor,CommonGround GC–73-69-76–218
Jay Orris,Boulder CC/James McHose,Boulder CC–75-69-75–219
Wes Martin,CommonGround GC/Shane Unfred,Highland Meadows GC–70-73-76–219
Sam Solomon,Todd Creek GC/Brian McCloy,Saddle Rock GC–75-74-70–219
Matt Reinick,Todd Creek GC/Jim Cole,Riverdale GC–72-73-74–219
Alan Boyko,Heritage at Westmoor/Jeremy Thibault,Heritage at Westmoor–71-74-76–221
Timothy Nowak,Ute Creek GC/Daniel Price,Murphy Creek GC–73-75-76–224
Ryan Brown,Ute Creek GC/Joe Larsen,Riverdale GC–75-77-74–226
Aaron Spear,Broadlands GC/Taylor Osieczanek,Broadlands GC–77-79-75–231
Chris Welch,CommonGround GC/Jed Greenblatt,Denver CC–81-79-73–233
Todd Stemm,Heritage at Westmoor/JD Cohen,CommonGround GC–89-86-86–261