It was 1991 — the 75th anniversary year for the CWGA. And, personally for Moore, it was when she won the first of her five CWGA Stroke Play titles during the 1990s. That was a decade-long feat matched only by CWGA Golfer of the Century Carol Flenniken during the 1970s. And that ’91 victory also brings back a cherished family memory for Moore, who is married to fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kent Moore.

“Kent’s mom brought (Janet and Kent’s son) Steven out because my parents were watching and she was babysitting,” Janet recalled recently. “I have pictures holding Steven when he was probably four months old. And now Steven is here at my house with my granddaughter. That shows you how time passes. Here I am playing 25 years later and there’s another baby in the mix, and it’s a grandchild. That’s a huge blessing and a lot of fun.”

Indeed, next week, Denver Country Club again will host the CWGA Stroke Play — and a 100th-anniversary luncheon celebration that will immediately follow the final round of the championship on Aug. 4. And, just as when DCC hosted during the CWGA’s 75th year, Moore will be competing in the Stroke Play in the summer when the association turns 100.

In fact, Denver Country Club has been a fixture on the schedule for the biggest CWGA championships each time the association has celebrated a major anniversary.

When the CWGA turned 25 in 1941, the Match Play was held at Denver Country Club, with Mrs. Murray Gose claiming the title. In 1966 when the CWGA celebrated its 50th “birthday”, the CWGA Stroke Play (then known as the Denver Women’s Invitational) was contested at DCC, and, appropriately, club member Joan Birkland won the event for the third straight time. Then, as noted, Moore prevailed at the CWGA Stroke Play in ’91 when the association hit 75 years old.

And now, with the CWGA hitting 100, the Stroke Play is back at the historic Denver club, with the 54-hole tournament scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday (Aug. 2-4).

“It’s a wonderful tradition that’s continuing at Denver Country Club,” said Laura Robinson, the new executive director of the CWGA.

“The club has been very supportive,” said Maggie Giesenhagen, the CWGA’s executive director in 1991 when the 75th-anniversary event was at the club, and who’s now a member at DCC. “And the club has been appreciative of the fact that the CWGA has requested the championship there on special occasions and has been willing to host at those times.”

As a member — and as someone who still assists the CWGA on occasion — Giesenhagen helped plant the seed for the Stroke Play and 100th-anniversary luncheon celebration to be held at Denver Country Club. And she’s lending a hand in organizating practice rounds and in course set-up. And Giesenhagen and Birkland, another DCC member, will present the prizes at the luncheon on Aug. 4.

That luncheon, which will immediately follow the conclusion of the final round of the Stroke Play after a two-tee start that morning, will double as the wrapup for the 69th Stroke Play and one of the major celebrations of the CWGA’s 100th anniversary.

During the Aug. 4 event, USGA regional affairs director Mark Passey is scheduled to present the CWGA with a plaque acknowledging its milestone. Scrapbooks with historical clips and photos, and the 75th-anniversary program from 1991, will be on site. Memorabilia from the 100th anniversary will be available. And, of course, the Stroke Play winner will be crowned.

With Birkland having won the CWGA Stroke Play (nee Denver Women’s Invitational) 50 years ago for the third consecutive summer, she still remembers a detail or two from her performance at Denver Country Club, where she’s been a member for basically her entire life.

The history of the Stroke Play is a bit confusing because, as noted earlier, the tournament was originally known as the Denver Women’s Invitational. And sometimes the format for that event was stroke play, and sometimes it was match play, including 1966 when Birkland prevailed. But in 1980, the CWGA adopted the Denver Women’s Invitational and renamed it the CWGA Stroke Play Championship.

During the 1966 event, “I remember a shot I hit from behind a tree that went 150 yards and into the hole for an eagle,” said Birkland, both a golf and tennis standout who has been inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. “It was the sixth hole and I was down to someone I had never heard of, and I thought, ‘This is crazy. I should be beating her and I’m behind.’ I hit the ball behind a tree on the sixth hole. I thought, ‘I have a little room to hit this.’ And it went into the hole. (Birkland’s opponent) never recovered. I don’t blame here. It was a career shot, one where you just say, ‘Oh, come on.'”

Besides presenting the trophy this year, Birkland said she’ll likely be a spectator during the final round.

“I’m so glad Denver Country Club could host it,” she said. “I think it’s fabulous to have it there. It’s a great course for women. It’ll be interesting mostly to see the difference in length that the kids hit that ball now. It’s a whole different game from the ’60s. They just nail it. It’ll be interesting to see how they play the Denver Country Club because it isn’t that long a golf course.”

Indeed, for the top players DCC will play about 6,221 yards next week.

Of course, Denver Country Club is no stranger to hosting big-time golf events, including various women’s national and international championships. Among them have been the 1982 Curtis Cup Matches between the best women’s amateurs from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland (participants included Juli Inkster and Carol Semple), and the Women’s Trans National in 1929, ’36 and ’46 (when Babe Zaharias won).

“For the 100th anniversary, and with the rich history that Denver Country Club has — having held great championships there not only at the state level, but the national level — it’s a great course, and they’re so gracious to let us come out and play there,” Moore said. “It makes it very special, and it’s a great way to celebrate the 100th anniversary.”

When Moore won at DCC in 1991 — beating the likes of Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Tish Preuss, a three-time low amateur in the U.S. Women’s Open — she completed a rare family-related feat. Five years earlier, Kent Moore, who she would marry in ’89, won the CGA Stroke Play — at Denver Country Club.

“I was treading new ground there (in 1991) because it was my first one (winning),” Janet Moore said. “Kent was caddying for me. He had played there and won there, so he was a great caddie. On the third day I was so nervous. He said, ‘Janet, get a good song going in your mind to calm yourself down.’ Steven was probably four months old at the time. The only song that came to me was ‘Jesus Loves Me’ because that’s the lullaby I sang to him to get him to sleep. That was literally the song that was going through my mind (during that final day of the tournament). I was singing a lullaby to myself so I wouldn’t be nervous.”

As for this year’s Stroke Play, it’s worth noting that the last two winners of the event (Hannah Wood of Highlands Ranch and Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster) competed in the U.S. Women’s Open earlier this month.

And, based on last year’s performance, the field will have its work cut out keeping with Kupcho as she defends her title next week. Last year at Pinehurst Country Club, Kupcho won by a remarkable 21 shots, finishing 16 under par en route to her second CWGA Player of the Year award. Earlier this year, Kupcho won the CWGA Match Play for the second time.

Others in the field at Denver Country Club include Moore, fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famers Kim Eaton and Christie Austin, former 5A state high school champions Mackenzie Cohen, Gillian Vance and Calli Ringsby, 2016 CWGA Match Play runner-up Jaylee Tait, and 2012 Match Play winner Allie Johnston. Ringsby is a Denver CC member.

Like Moore, Eaton won her first CWGA Stroke Play title at Denver Country Club. In Eaton’s case, the first of her four came in 1978 at DCC.

Twelve players, plus ties, will end up competing in the championship flight — based on their scores from the first two days. And there will be seven other flights for the Stroke Play. All told, 96 players will compete.

Being that many people rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to play Denver Country Club, it probably comes as no surprise that the CWGA has a significant waiting list for the Stroke Play. As of this week, the number of golfers on that list was 62.

Next week will mark the 22nd time Denver Country Club has hosted either the CWGA Match Play (16 times, the last being in 1971) or the Stroke Play (five times previously).

While Lynn Zmistowski insists she never viewed herself as a volunteer in what she’s done for the game of golf, let it never be said that she was anything but dedicated to the task at hand when a duty was given to her.

Case in point: When she chaired the CWGA Course Rating Committee in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the USGA created a “Slope” rating system in which golf courses would be rated according to their relative difficulty for players of varying ability. The CWGA and CGA were tasked to rate all of Colorado’s golf courses in accordance with the new Slope system.

In order to get the job done right — and consistently — Zmistowski felt she personally had to participate in every course rating the CWGA conducted. So over the course of less than five years, she played every hole of every golf course in Colorado at the time, giving her a distinction not many people can claim. The state had about 120 golf courses at that time, so that was no small feat.

“For consistency, I made it my mission to go on all the ratings,” Zmistowski said this week. “It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. I’d play one week in Rangely, the next in Lamar. We had a great committee and always thought being on the committee was an honor. We loved being able to travel together and see the beautiful state of Colorado.

“I think you have to play the course to understand the course, and you have to understand the course to rate it. Colorado was a leader in the whole (Slope rating process). Most of the other states were looking to (the CWGA and CGA).”

It’s that dedication that earned Zmistowski a remarkable honor on Feb. 27 at the CWGA annual meeting — that of CWGA Volunteer of the Century.

With the CWGA leadership wanting some suspense for its centennial celebration at the annual meeting, Zmistowski didn’t find out she had received the award until the day of the event. She was competing in a couples club championship at her home course of Alta Mesa in Mesa, Ariz., that weekend, but had seen the program on the eve of the event. She noticed “Volunteer of the Century” by her name, “but I thought there must be a typo,” she said. But during the annual meeting, fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton texted Zmistowski the news.

“The shock was amazing,” said Zmistowski, who now splits her time between Colorado (Boulder specifically) and Arizona. “I said to my husband (Bill), ‘You’ll never believe this.’ It’s obviously an amazing honor. I never thought of myself as a volunteer. I viewed anything I did related to golf as a passion. It’s just a way to give back to the sport that has given me so much enjoyment.

“I never thought my name would come up under ‘volunteer.’ There are a lot of people who have been outstanding volunteers. I guess I just did it for more years. And I’ve enjoyed it.”

Zmistowski has been a golf volunteer for more than 40 years — ever since Joan Birkland called her in 1975 and asked her to join the CWGA’s Course Rating Committee. Birkland, a standout in both golf and tennis, is a longtime Colorado Sports Hall of Famer. For her part, Zmistowski is a member of the Colorado and Minnesota Golf Halls of Fame, and the Rochester (Minn.) Sports Hall of Fame.

Zmistowski’s volunteer duties have included 30 years on the CWGA Course Rating Committee, including five as chair; more than 25 years on the USGA handicap procedures committee, for which she received the Ike Grainger Award in 2009 (left); six years as the first captain of the Colorado Girls Junior Americas Cup team and working on the GJAC handbook. Zmistowski took her daughter, Kim, on all the Junior Americas Cup trips, and still remembers her doing cartwheels on the practice range.

As recently as last year, Zmistowski volunteered to answer handicap-related questions that the CWGA received. And for the last eight years or so, she’s served on the handicap procedures committee for the Arizona Women’s Golf Associaton and has been the handicap chair for Alta Mesa Golf Club and helps run a major women’s invitational at the course.

“I have all this knowledge and can be helpful to people,” Zmistowski explained. “I feel I can contribute.”

As CWGA Centennial Committee co-chair Nancy Wilson said of Zmistowski at the annual meeting, “It certainly shows her dedication to this organization and to the game of golf. … Lynn Z, as she is affectionately called, has performed each task that she accepted with focused dedication and is very deserving of the Volunteer of the Century award.”

But the Volunteer of the Century wasn’t the only honor Zmistowski was awarded at the CWGA annual meeting. She was also one of nine outstanding players in the history of the association, all of whom have won at least five major CWGA individual championships. Zmistowski, who earlier had claimed titles in two CWGA Match Plays and two Senior Stroke Plays, last year at age 70 earned the senior championship at the 100th CWGA Match Play. (Above, finalist Kathy Malpass congratulates the champion.) In all, Zmistowski has captured 15 individual state amateur titles in Minnesota, Colorado and Arizona.

Zmistowski was the only person to be included on both the CWGA’s “Notable Volunteers” of the century and the “Outstanding Players” of the century.

Overall, Lynn Z has many fond memories of her years in Colorado and volunteering for the CWGA. Here are a couple:

— On the first time she met former longtime CWGA executive director Robin Jervey, with a group at a Denver Nuggets game:

“I had laryngitis and could not say a word,” Zmistowski said. “Robin got the impression I was pretty quiet but once I got my voice back she said, ‘Lynn never shuts up.'”

— On meeting Birkland as the two squared off in the 1971 CWGA Match Play at Denver Country Club, where Zmistowski would go on to earn the title:

“After we teed off and were walking down the first fairway, Joanie said to me, ‘Well, Lynn, who are you and where did you come from?’ We proceeded to play the next 17 holes chatting so much that on the 17th green I said to Joanie, ‘How does our match stand?’ and Joanie said, ‘You’re 1 down.’ We have been very close friends ever since.”

Zmistowski, who considers Willis Case in Denver her home course in Colorado, calls the late Katie Fiorella, a fellow Colorado Golf Hall of Famer and a longtime fixture at Willis Case, her best friend. Fiorella served on the CWGA Course Rating Committee for more than two decades.

“Katie loved every last thing there was to love in Colorado, and she passed that love to me,” Zmistowski said.

(Above, Zmistowski is pictured with Birkland, center, and Fiorella.)

Editor’s Note: With the CGA celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1915, this is the ninth monthly installment of a series of stories looking back on the last century of golf in Colorado. All the articles are being published on coloradogolf.org. This chapter focuses on the period from 1995-2004. For the previous installments, CLICK HERE.

There have been many groundbreaking and pivotal moments for women in the history of golf in Colorado and beyond, but it hasn’t gotten much bigger in the Centennial State than in the mid- and late-1990s.

It started with The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs hosting the 50th U.S. Women’s Open in 1995, marking the first time arguably the top championship in women’s golf has come to Colorado — or the Mountain time zone, for that matter. And though no one realized it at the time, one of the sport’s all-time greats was to emerge, as Annika Sorenstam made that tournament the first of what would become 72 LPGA Tour victories before she unexpectedly retired in 2008.

In the first of her 10 major championship wins, Sorenstam (below) finished a stroke ahead of Meg Mallon and two in front of Pat Bradley and Betsy King at The Broadmoor’s historic East Course. That was the first year the U.S. Women’s Open featured a purse of at least $1 million.

While all that was huge from a historical perspective, the next year was even more unique.

That was when Colorado Springs resident Judy Bell was elected president of the USGA, becoming the first female to hold that post. In fact, Bell’s two-year term beginning in January 1996 remains the only one in which a woman has served as USGA president since Theodore Havemeyer became the first president of the association in 1894.

“I bet that’s the first time the incoming president kissed the outgoing president on the way to the dais,” Bell memorably joked after it was announced she would succeed Reg Murphy.

But, as former USGA president Stuart Bloch noted, “Judy’s gender, I don’t believe, was a consideration in her election. Her abilities, I think, were the consideration that caused her to be selected as the first woman president. If she were a man, she would have been elected.”

Overall, Bell was the third Coloradan to become USGA president, following Denver residents Frank Woodward (1915-16) and Will Nicholson Jr. (1980-81). (Bell is pictured at top in a USGA photo presenting the low-amateur award to Cristie Kerr at the 1996 U.S. Women’s Open.)

During Bell’s presidency, the USGA started the “For the Good of the Game” program, a $50 million initiative which aimed to increasingly spread the game to groups such as youth, minorities and the disabled.

Bell had had a long, distinguished career as both a player and a volunteer golf administrator leading up to her presidency. She had served on the USGA Women’s Committee starting in 1968 and chaired that committee from 1981 to ’84. Then in 1987, she became the first woman elected to the USGA Executive Committee.

On the playing end, Bell won three Kansas women’s amateurs, starting at age 15, and three Broadmoor Ladies Invitation titles, competed in 38 USGA championships and was both a player and captain on U.S. Curtis Cup teams. And in 1964, she shot the lowest round in the history of the U.S. Women’s Open, a 6-under-par 67, a standard which stood for 14 years.

For all this and much more, Bell was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001.

But Bell wasn’t the only woman from Colorado in USGA volunteer leadership roles around this time. Colorado Springs’ Barbara McIntire, winner of two U.S. Women’s Amateurs and a British Ladies Amateur, served as USGA Women’s Committee chair in 1995-96, and Denver’s Joan Birkland, another accomplished athlete, followed McIntire in that role in 1997-98.

On a more local level, 1995 marked the debut of the Colorado Women’s Open.

Here are some of the other Colorado golf highlights of the period from 1995-2004:

— Steve Jones (left), who grew up in Yuma, Colo., and played golf at the University of Colorado, won the 1996 U.S. Open, overcoming runners-up Davis Love and Tom Lehman. The victory culminated a remarkable comeback after Jones was off the PGA Tour for almost three years following a dirt-bike accident in November 1991. The victory gave former CU golfers four U.S. Open titles — three for Hale Irwin and one for Jones.

— In 1996, the CGA entered into an agreement with the Lowry Redevelopment Authority to purchase the former Lowry Air Force Base golf course. The CWGA became partner with the CGA in the purchase of the course. The site is now home of CommonGround Golf Course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA.

— From 1996 to ’98, Ken Krieger won three consecutive Colorado PGA Professional Championships, becoming the second player in the 1990s to do so, joining Ron Vlosich (1991-93).

— In the five-year period from 1997-2001, an amazing 42 courses opened in Colorado.

— Cherry Hills Country Club hosted the 1998 Trans Miss, won by Dan Dunkelberg. Coloradan John Olive was the runner-up.

— CU graduate Hale Irwin won two U.S. Senior Opens in three years, in 1998 and 2000. That gave the former Buff a total of five USGA championships, including his three U.S. Opens.

— In 1998, The Broadmoor hosted the biennial PGA Cup matches, which pits the top club professionals from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland. In Colorado Springs, the U.S. defeated GB&I 17-9.

— In the period from 1999 to 2002, Kevin Stadler won the CGA Match Play title twice, along with the 2002 Colorado Open championship in his pro debut. During the decade 1995-2004, Stadler and Jonathan Kaye (1996) won the Colorado Open en route to becoming PGA Tour champions.

— John Olive, winner of the 1977 CGA Match Play, became one of the top senior players in Colorado history. In addition to claiming titles in five CGA Senior Stroke Plays and four Senior Match Plays during this decade, he won the inaugural Colorado Senior Open (1999) and remains the only amateur to earn the title in that event.

— Colorado PGA members received four more PGA of America national awards in this decade: Alan Abrams (1997 Junior Golf Leader), Mike McGetrick (1999 Teacher of the Year), Charles “Vic” Kline (2000 Golf Professional of the Year) and Russ Miller (2003 Resort Merchandiser of the Year).

— In 2000, Coloradan Kaye Kessler won the PGA of America’s National Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism.

— Also in 2000, Warren Simmons retired as CGA executive director, with Ed Mate succeeding him. Mate continues in the position to this day.

— Nicki Cutler won the CWGA Stroke Play three times in a four-year period from 2000-03.

— Rick DeWitt, the 1999 CGA Stroke Play champ, won the last of his record seven CGA Mid-Amateur titles in 2002 before being inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame and later turning pro. He was named CGA Player of the Year a record six times.

— With financial issues and mismanagement burdening the Colorado Open, the 2003 championship was called off during tournament week. Thanks in large part to developer Pat Hamill, the event was resurrected in 2004.

— The International at Castle Pines saw two future World Golf Hall of Famers — Phil Mickelson (1993 and ’97) and Davis Love III (1990 and 2003) win the PGA Tour event for the second time.

— Les Fowler, a Colorado Golf Hall of Fame player and a former CGA president who had a key role in the CGA acquiring the golf course at Lowry, passed away in 2003.

— In 2004, Steve Irwin, a former pro who regained his amateur status, joined his father Hale (1966) as a winner of the CGA Match Play.

— Jamie Lovemark won the prestigious 2004 Western Junior at Denver Country Club. Lovemark later became the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world.
 

It seemed only fitting that a match for the ages settled the 100th CWGA Match Play Championship.

In Thursday’s 35-hole final in which the two players combined to make 22 birdies and were 15 under par, Paige Spiranac defeated Brittany Fan 2 and 1 after they halved the final hole with — what else? — birdies.

“It’s a lot of pressure because you know you have to be at the top of your game, but that’s also fun too,” said Spiranac, who matched 6-under-par 66s with Fan on the first 18, then went 3 under par on the next 17 holes to finish at 9 under overall. “You want to have that competition. You want her to play well, and I also want to play well. I was happy when she made birdie and I’d want to make birdie too. It was really fun going back and forth the entire time.”

Indeed, Spiranac was 6 under par in her first 10 holes at Raccoon Creek Golf Course, where she keeps her handicap. That left the former Coloradan 2 up. But Fan, a Hawaii native who plays golf for the University of Colorado, battled back to go 2 up through 23 holes. Then Spiranac birdied the 27th and 28th holes to take a lead she wouldn’t relinquish.

“I’m kind of having mixed emotions right now,” said Fan, the low amateur at the 2013 HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open. “I’m sad and disappointed that I lost but I’m also happy because that was a really great match. You have to make birdie to win, and we just played great.”

For the 22-year-old Spiranac (left and above), it was her second CWGA championship victory as she won the Junior Stroke Play in 2010. She also claimed the title at the 2006 CJGA Tournament of Champions, among other CJGA victories.

Spiranac hasn’t lived in Colorado for about five years — she now mainly splits time between Arizona, where her parents live, and San Diego, where she just completed her college golf eligibility at San Diego State, though she has one more semester of school before graduating.

But because Spiranac is visiting an older sister who lives in Colorado, she’s playing a few tournaments in the state while she’s here, including the Match Play, U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifying and the CWGA Stroke Play.

The Match Play certainly was a good start to the run as Spiranac earned medalist honors and won her four matches 7 and 6, 3 and 2, 5 and 4, and 2 and 1.

And, of course, it doesn’t hurt to forever go down as the winner of the 100th CWGA Match Play, with numerous former champions on hand, including four-time winner Joan Birkland and former CWGA executive director Maggie Giesenhagen.

“It’s awesome,” Spiranac said. “It has great tradition and the CWGA always puts on great events. It’s nice to win the 100th and have my name on there.

“I grew up in Colorado playing junior golf here, then went away to college. So it’s nice to come back to Colorado and win again. It means a lot because I’ve been working really hard on my game. It feels great to have it all come together.”

On Thursday, Spiranac took control by winning four holes in a five-hole stretch in the middle of the second round to go 3 up through 31 holes. But as quickly as you can say “not so fast”, Fan made one last run. She birdied both the 32nd and 33rd holes to narrow Spiranac’s lead to 1 up.

“She started to get a little momentum (after a bogey by Fan on the par-3 13th hole),” said the 19-year-old CU golfer, who ousted defending champion Jennifer Kupcho in the semifinals. “But I told myself, ‘You’ve got to keep fighting’, and I went birdie-birdie. But she was playing well too.”

When Fan (left) made bogey from a greenside bunker on the 34th hole, Spiranac went back to 2 up. Then the two finished the match in appropriate fashion. On the 150-yard 35th hole, Spiranac put her tee shot 3 feet from the hole. Fan calmly nearly matched the effort, with her ball ending up 5 feet from the cup.

Fan drained her birdie, and Spiranac did likewise to cap the match. It was the fourth time Thursday that they halved a hole with birdies.

“Honestly, the entire time it was back and forth and up and down,” said Spiranac, who hopes to turn pro by December. “Once I hit it in on 17, that was when it was, ‘OK, I can relax now.’ The entire time I couldn’t let down. When I thought I had it for a second (with five holes left), she came back and made two straight birdies. The entire time I was staying as focused as I could.”

Meanwhile, for the second consecutive year at the CWGA Match Play, a CU golfer finished runner-up, with Fan following in the footsteps of Tori Glenn in 2014.

As good as Fan played, she was left lamenting two three-putts — on the 24th and 30th holes — that cost her in a tight match.

“I think if I didn’t have the three-putts, I think we’d still be playing,” Fan said shortly after the match. “I definitely take a lot of positives from this, but there’s also a lot of things I can work on.”

For a story on the CWGA Match Play Senior Championship, CLICK HERE.

CWGA Match Play Championship
At Raccoon Creek GC in Littleton

Championship Flight Final (36 holes) — Paige Spiranac def. Brittany Fan, 2 and 1

Championship Flight Consolation Final — Samantha Barker def. Allie Johnston, 3 and 2

President’s Flight Final — Taylor Dorans def. Delaney Elliott, 1 up

President’s Flight Consolation Final — Sydney Gillespie def. Sarah Hankins, 3 and 1

Senior Championship Flight Final — Lynn Zmistowski def. Kathy Malpass, 1 up

Senior Championship Flight Consolational Final — Denise Cohen def. Christie Austin, 21 holes

First Flight Final — Jenni Chun def. Deb Hughes, 2 and 1

First Flight Consolation Final — Michelle Romano def. Megan McCambridge, 2 up

Second Flight Final — Nancy Ziereis def. Lynn Larson, 1 up

Second Flight Consolation Final — Courtney Ewing def. Katty Rothberg, 1 up

Third Flight Final — Aubrey Doran def. Susan Schell, 3 and 2

Third Flight Consolation Final — Carla Stearns def. Laurie Steenrod, 2 and 1

Fourth Flight Final — Jennifer Cassell def. Cindy Speer, 4 and 2

Fourth Flight Consolation Final — Nancy Sturgill def. Lyndon Lieb, 5 and 3

Fifth Flight Final — Judy Maillis def. Patti Godette, 2 and 1

Fifth Flight Consolation Final — Becky Finger def. Jennie Jones, 2 and 1

Sixth Flight Final — Harlene Bowman def. Cheryl Burget, 6 and 5

Sixth Flight Consolation Final — Lori Maul def. Sallie Dalton, 1 up

For the 43-year period from 1972 through 2014, there’s been only one year (2007) that Colorado hasn’t hosted a significant tour event or a major national/international amateur golf competition.

The LPGA Tour held tournaments in the state for 16 consecutive years beginning in 1972. The Senior/Champions Tour had a six-year run in Colorado beginning in 1982. And the PGA Tour visited annually from 1986-2006 thanks to The International at Castle Pines Golf Club. In addition, there were numerous USGA championships and other big events held in the Centennial State during that time span.

And since The International exited, Colorado has hosted the U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Amateur Public Links in 2008, the 2009 Palmer Cup (a Ryder Cup-like competition for the best college players), the 2010 Senior PGA Championship, the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open, the 2012 U.S. Amateur, the 2013 Solheim Cup and Junior Solheim Cup, and the 2014 BMW Championship.

If nothing else, the state deserves an “A” for variety of major golf events in recent years.

But with the calendar having just flipped over to 2015, this year is an anomaly by Colorado standards. No major tour is paying a visit, nor is a major national/international amateur event.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a healthy smattering of significant and/or out of the ordinary championships to look forward to in Colorado golf and the surrounding area in 2015.

Here is a sampling of such events:

— 100th CWGA Match Play Championship: The CWGA Match Play was first contested in 1916, making it by far the oldest continuously played statewide women’s golf championship in Colorado. CWGA records list Mrs. M.A. McLaughlin, the wife of the first president of the CGA, as the winner of the first two Match Plays, in 1916 at Colorado Springs Country Club and ’17 at Denver Country Club.

The event has been played every year since — and now has a senior championship held concurrently. Among the winners of the tournament is Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Joan Birkland (a four-time champ), who won both state golf and tennis championships in the 1960s.

The 100th CWGA Match Play will be held July 7-9 at Raccoon Creek Golf Course in Littleton.

— Inaugural AJGA Hale Irwin Junior: Some of the best junior golfers in the nation — both boys and girls — will compete at CommonGround Golf Course as the AJGA returns to Colorado for the first time since 2013.

Hale Irwin, winner of four CGA championships, a Colorado state high school title and an NCAA championship while at the University of Colorado, will lend his name to this new event. The inaugural tournament is set for June 2-4, with a qualifying round scheduled for May 31 and a Junior-Am on June 1. CommonGround, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, served as one of the two courses for the stroke-play portion of the 2012 U.S. Amateur that Cherry Hills hosted.

— Women’s Pac-12 Conference Championships: Many of the best women’s college golfers in the world will come to Colorado for the Pac-12 Conference tournament that Boulder Country Club will host April 20-22.

Despite LPGA Tour qualifying prompting three of the conference’s top players to turn pro last month, four of the current top six teams in the nation, according to Golfweek — Washington, UCLA, Stanford and Southern California — will be among those competing in Boulder. In addition, the defending NCAA Division I champion (Doris Chen of USC) will be on hand.

— Girls’ Junior America’s Cup in Cheyenne: Though Cheyenne obviously isn’t in Colorado, it’s right across the state line — and just 100 miles from Denver. Cheyenne Country Club will host the 2015 Girls’ Junior Americas Cup competition that features some of the best female junior players from the western U.S., Canada and Mexico. The dates of the tournament are July 28-30.

Colorado fields one of the 18 teams that annually participate in the Girls’ Junior Americas Cup.

Meanwhile, here are the 2015 dates and sites for some of the top tournaments held annually in Colorado:

— June 3-5: HealthOne Colorado Senior Open, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club.

— July 6-10: CGA Match Play, Broadmoor Mountain Course.

— July 7-9: CWGA Match Play, Raccoon Creek Golf Course.

— July 21-23: CWGA Stroke Play, Pinehurst Country Club.

— July 23-26: HealthOne Colorado Open, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club.

— Aug. 13-16: CGA Stroke Play, CommonGround Golf Course.

— Sept. 14-16: Colorado PGA Professional Championship, Meridian Golf Club.

Note: The dates for the HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open haven’t been finalized, but they are expected to fall in the second half of August.
 

Not coincidentally, the inaugural Match Play was conducted the same year the CWGA was founded, 98 years ago.

But with interest dwindling in competing in the oldest continuously-held statewide women’s golf championship in Colorado, CWGA leadership decided to cancel the 2014 CWGA Match Play Championship “due to low entries”. It was scheduled for June 23-26 at Lone Tree Golf Club, with the first round being qualifying to set the match-play bracket.

The CWGA had extended the entry deadline for the Match Play twice, but still had drawn only 43 players between the open-age and senior flights. Last year, 54 started the event. A full field for the Match Play as currently configured would be 96 players. (The CWGA Match Play trophy is pictured above.)

“It’s a traditional championship and historical, but it’s OK to stop and get feedback,” said Ann Guiberson, the CWGA’s new executive director. “It may be time to stop and rebrand.”

Guiberson added that “we want to continue to have it because it’s one of the oldest championships.” But, according to the notice that the CWGA sent to 2014 Match Play entrants, the CWGA Tournament Committee “will further review the format, timing and participation in this championship over the course of this season. We welcome your input.”

Guiberson indicated the numbers simply weren’t there to support a full-scale, multi-flight championship. With 16 players in the open championship-flight bracket and eight in the senior championship flight, a total 19 players would have been left for the non-championship-flight brackets on the open and senior side.

“It’s just in fairness to the players and the (Lone Tree) club,” Guiberson said. “You’ve got to take into consideration the course; they would have lost tremendous revenue.”

Looking forward, the CWGA will consider how heavily it promotes the championship, and how it’s presented. There are two champions crowned — open division and seniors — “but it’s presented as one,” Guiberson noted.

There’s also the issue of timing. The CWGA Match Play was scheduled to be contested just two weeks after a very popular team match play event — the just-completed CWGA Mashie, which drew 192 competitors.

“Are they too close?” Guiberson asked. “We have to look in relation to other events.”

Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Joan Birkland, a four-time winner of the CWGA Match Play in the 1960s, admits she doesn’t know why competitor interest in the championship is dropping, but she has a guess. “The players of college golf age are so good that older players figure it’s not worth playing,” she said.

The last open-division CWGA Match Play champion who won when she was 25 or older was Kim Eaton in 2004.

Among the most successful players all-time in the CWGA Match Play, Phyllis Buchanan won six times in the 1930s, and Birkland, Marcia Bailey and Carol Flenniken claimed the title four times each in the 1960s and ’70s.

Players who entered the 2014 Match Play will receive a full refund.
 

There aren’t too many people living today who can say they’ve personally played golf with Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.

Jim English can truthfully make that claim, even though the first four out of that illustrious fivesome were born more than 100 years ago.

The longtime Denver-area resident, who will turn 88 this month, played a couple of holes with Sarazen in Omaha when English was 12 or 13. Then he played three holes with 1930 Grand Slam winner Jones during a practice round for the 1947 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, where English competed that year but Jones did not.

“When you’re around this number of years, you’re going to have a few stories,” English noted in an interview this week.

Yes, English has lived a memorable life in golf. And with U.S. Open qualifying beginning this month, it’s worth noting that 55 years ago he enjoyed one of his biggest moments in the game, earning low-amateur honors in the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

English, who had moved from Kansas to Colorado two years earlier, remembers seeing Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady” — along with a couple of other Broadway shows — that week, making for a “pretty wonderful vacation too.” But it was English’s performance at Winged Foot that’s particularly memorable.

In the U.S. Open, he bettered the likes of then-reigning U.S. Amateur champion Charlie Coe and Jack Nicklaus, who three months later would beat Coe in the final match at the Broadmoor to win the first of his two U.S. Amateurs. Also finishing behind English at Winged Foot were defending U.S. Open champion Tommy Bolt, Bob Goalby and Ken Venturi. Billy Casper won the tournament with a 282 total.

“I played fairly steadily” that week at the U.S. Open, noted English, who shot 74-75-77-73 for a 299 total. “Nicklaus missed the cut and I beat Charlie Coe by two. I chipped in for birdie on 16 in the last round, and I guess that made the difference. That U.S. Open had a pretty good amateur field.”

Though English accomplished plenty in his amateur golf career, that U.S. Open stands out as perhaps the biggest highlight.

“That’s because it was on a national scale,” he said. “Most of the other things I did were on a regional or local basis, though they were good tournaments to win.”

Qualifying for the U.S. Open back then wasn’t quite the task it is now. For instance, there were no “Local” qualifying tournaments, just 36-hole “Sectionals”. But still, 2,385 people entered the 1959 U.S. Open, so making it in the final field of about 150 players was anything but a cakewalk.

Despite that, English said he successfully qualified for nine U.S. Opens over the years. But the odd thing is, he competed in that national championship just five times (1951, ’53, ’58, ’59 and ’60).

There were different reasons different years why he didn’t go to the U.S. Open after qualifying several times in the latter 1940s and in 1950 — he was going to summer school at Creighton a couple of years, his wife was having a difficult pregnancy another, etc. Whatever the case, the USGA apparently took notice and sent English a letter basically asking, why do you bother qualifying if you don’t intend to compete in the U.S. Open?

“After that, they made it a point to ask qualifiers if they would actually go (to the Open),” English recalls. “But one of the reasons I went to the Sectional qualifying was that it was 36 holes at good golf courses and the entry fee was only $10. I liked the competition and I liked to play good golf courses.”

But English finally did compete at the U.S. Open in 1951 at Oakland Hills in Michigan. He missed the cut there, but on a course that allowed only two sub-par scores in four rounds, he was able to follow Ben Hogan during the champion’s final-round 67. That just whet English’s appetite for more.

The 20 years after the end of World War II were a very impressive time for English and his amateur golf career. He won three tournaments with big-time national amateur reputations: the 1950 Trans-Mississippi and the Broadmoor Invitation in 1955 and ’64. In the Trans-Miss, English put together one of the most dominating performances in the history of the championship match, winning 11 and 10.

English also competed in five U.S. Amateurs between 1947 and ’61, with the first and last being at Pebble Beach.

And English really made hay in state and regional tournaments in Colorado and the surrounding states.

He’s won six CGA championships, including three Stroke Plays, two Match Plays and a Senior Stroke Play. (He’s pictured at left with fellow Colorado Match Play champion Joan Birkland in 1960.) He’s claimed two Kansas amateur titles, one in Nebraska, the Iowa Open and Iowa Masters. He even won a championship in a previous incarnation of the Colorado Open.

“For a long time, I just couldn’t get enough golf,” he said.

It’s no surprise, then, that English has been inducted into three state golf halls of fame — for Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa.

In fact, English was so good, he gave some serious consideration to becoming a playing professional. Besides the U.S. Open, he finished low amateur in a PGA Tour event in Kansas City in the 1950s.

“I was sorely tempted to turn pro,” he said. “I competed with the pros successfully. I played four exhibitions with Byron Nelson in the ’40s. He told me I could make money (on the PGA Tour), but I needed to be a better putter to win. But back then, the total purse for tournaments was about $10,000-$12,000. (After learning English had a degree, Nelson) recommended I just stay amateur and enjoy it.

“Later, when Orville Moody was an amateur out at Fitzsimons, he was making a decision whether to re-app (for another Army stint) or turn pro. I told him my experience. I said I’ve got a lot of regrets that I didn’t give it a go. I think I could have made it on the pro tour, but I don’t really regret it now. If I would have (played on the tour), I wouldn’t have the large family I have now.”

English has 11 kids, 25 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

English probably could have added to his list of golf accomplishments, but an injury in the mid-1960s slowed him down. He badly hurt his right hand while hitting a shot on the sixth hole at Denver Country Club. “After that, I was never quite the same,” he said.

While English had a successful career in the insurance business, he still relishes his days as a competitive golfer. Just two years ago (pictured at top), he was among the local U.S. Amateur veterans who participated in a U.S. Amateur Alumni Day leading up to the 2012 championship coming to Colorado.