If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Over the years, plenty of factors have affected attendance at the annual Denver Golf Expo, including weather issues and date conflicts with major sporting events or Valentine’s Day.

This year, there’s no overlap with the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500 or Cupid’s big day, and though the Winter Olympics start this weekend, the time difference in Korea may keep that from being a major issue for the Expo. And, barring Saturday’s forecast snow and cold from becoming a problem, the weather looks decent from the organizers’ perspective — not so warm that many people will stay away to actually play golf, and not likely adverse enough to keep a lot of people off the roads.

If everything aligns, Expo owners and operators Mark and Lynn Cramer are hoping attendance exceeding 10,000 for the three days (Friday through Sunday) is possible. The show hasn’t reached that mark since 2012, though last year was reasonably close (9,136).

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we’ll be over 10,000 — and the numbers support that,” Mark Cramer said recently, also noting that the number of exhibitors is up to 131 this year compared to 112 in 2017. “People have more money and at the shows that have been held, the gates are up for this year.”

This winter, as the Expo celebrates its 25th “birthday”, the show will be held — as usual — Friday through Sunday at the Denver Mart (northeast of the intersection of I-25 and 58th Ave.). Tickets run $13 for adults, $11 for seniors (over 50) and military with ID, and $3 for kids 16 and under.

As always, the show will feature exhibitors with plenty of deals, a lot of golf-related merchandise for sale, free lessons with PGA professionals, seminars on a variety of topics, a Lenny’s Golf club demo area, workshops, contests, and the opportunity to interact with many of the top golf organizations in the state — the CGA, Colorado PGA, the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado, the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, The First Tee of Denver, etc.

Here are a few of the highlights:

— With the CGA and CWGA having united into one Allied Golf Association effective at the start of this year, its presence will be consolidated into one large area near the entrance to the Denver Mart. With a new tagline of “Celebrating the Future of Golf Together,” the integrated staff will be on hand to answer questions about the unification and other matters; to add or renew memberships; to inform people about programs, events and championships; and to explain benefits and discounts members receive. There also will be a few contest giveaways — for foursomes at CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course and grand-prize stay-and-play packages for Laughlin, Nev. People can be entered in the contests by becoming members or taking surveys which help the CGA better understand needs of members and prospective members.

— The Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado, a joint effort of the CGA and the Colorado PGA, will be a fixture at the Expo once again. There, kids can participate in golf-related activities, get pointers on their games, and obtain information on a myriad of golf events and opportunities in 2018 — for every level from beginners to top-level players.

— The CGA will be conducting a two-day Rules of Golf Workshop at the Expo on Saturday and Sunday. And like last year — when the workshop was conducted in conjunction with the Expo for the first time since 2010 — the event has sold out well ahead of time. 

— As has been a regular feature at the Expo, Colorado PGA pros will offer free 10-minute lessons throughout the three-day show.

— Seminars will be conducted from 11 a.m. through mid-afternoon each day. There will be swing, putting and mental tips from numerous PGA pros, and sessions on the importance of club fitting and the path to success for junior golfers. “Lessons from an LPGA Tour Champion” will be conducted at 3 p.m. on Saturday by Lauren Howe, a Coloradan who won an LPGA event in 1983. At 1 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Sunday, Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kaye Kessler, a sports writer who chronicled Jack Nicklaus’ golf career from an early age, is scheduled to discuss the impact of Colorado and Coloradans on the national golf scene. And at 1 p.m. on Sunday, CGA director of rules and competitions Robert Duke will speak about lowering scores through understanding the Rules of Golf and preview prospective Rules changes that will take effect in 2019. For all the seminar topics, CLICK HERE.

— The radio folks from 104.3 The Fan will be broadcasting live from the Expo at various times this weekend.

— The grand prize up for grabs at this year’s show is a trip for four to Bandon Dunes in Oregon, including three nights lodging and a total of 12 rounds of golf at the Bandon Dunes resort.

The hours for the show this weekend are:

Friday, Feb. 9 — 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 10 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.”¨
Sunday, Feb. 11 — 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

For more information about the Expo, CLICK HERE.

For the first time in almost a half-century, the Masters field won’t include a single competitor with major Colorado ties.

Each year prior to this since the late 1960s, at least one player with strong Colorado connections was in the field at Augusta National Golf Club. Carrying the torch for the state over that period were the likes of Boulder High School and University of Colorado graduate Hale Irwin (21 appearances, including four consecutive top-five finishes from 1974 to ’77); 1982 champion Craig Stadler, a Colorado resident since 1994, whose run of 36 consecutive Masters ended after the 2014 tournament; Fort Morgan and CU product Dale Douglass; former Evergreen resident Dave Hill; part-time Boulder resident and former CU golfer Jonathan Kaye; Yuma High School and former Buff Steve Jones; Cherry Hills Village resident David Duval; Coloradan Gary Hallberg; former Cherry Creek High School golfer Mike Reid; Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Brandt Jobe; Aurora resident Mark Wiebe; former Colorado State University golfer Martin Laird; and part-time Denver resident Kevin Stadler. Kevin Stadler competed at the Masters last year after finishing eighth in his debut in 2014.

It’s been a great run, but it will end with this week’s Masters. Past champion Craig Stadler wrapped up his competitive run at Augusta National after competing with his son Kevin in 2014, and no other “local” earned an invitation for 2016.

But just because no one with strong Colorado ties will be playing beginning Thursday in Augusta, Ga., that certainly doesn’t mean that Colorado won’t be represented in other official roles at this year’s Masters.

Here are a few examples:

— Former Castle Pines resident Esteban Toledo — who won his fourth PGA Tour Champions event in February — will caddie for former Masters champion Sandy Lyle (CLICK HERE). (Toledo and Lyle are pictured together Monday in an Augusta National photo.) Also on the caddie front, Coloradan Steve “Pepsi” Hale will loop for Keegan Bradley.

— CGA executive director Ed Mate will be a rules official at the Masters, thanks to joining the USGA Rules of Golf Committee within the last year.

— Craig Stadler, while not competing, returned for Tuesday evening’s Champions Dinner and for Wednesday’s Par-3 Contest.

— Steamboat Springs resident Verne Lundquist — he of “Yes, Sir!” broadcasting fame — will be back at Augusta National as part of the CBS television crew. Also on that team will be Dottie Pepper, one of the speakers at the G4 Summit held in February at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. Pepper will be the first on-course female broadcaster for CBS at Augusta National.

— Duval, who’s lived in Colorado for about a dozen years, is also at Augusta National on TV assignment, serving as an analyst for the Golf Channel. Also working for the Golf Channel at the Masters is Colorado State University product Steve Sands.

— Veteran award-winning golf journalist Kaye Kessler of Littleton will cover the Masters for the 53rd time, a run that started in 1963.

— And, of course, Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Will Nicholson Jr., has been a fixture at the Masters in recent decades, serving as chairman of the Masters Competition Committee from 1992 through 2006, when he was responsible for setting up Augusta National for the Masters. Nicholson also chaired the Masters Rules Committee for 17 years.
 

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’s the time of year for figuring out the perfect gift for that certain someone, and for spreading good cheer to kith and kin.

Here at COgolf.org, where we have an obvious affinity for a certain game, the gifts we divvy out not surprisingly follow a given theme.

So without further ado, after perusing our naughty and nice lists, here are our holiday gifts, golf-style:

To: BMW Championship. Gift: Extending that run of being named PGA Tour Tournament of the Year to three straight years with a memorable 2014 edition at Cherry Hills Country Club. (For information about BMW Championship holiday ticket packs, CLICK HERE.)

To: Cherry Hills Country Club. Gift: For the first PGA Tour event in Colorado in eight years, a champion along the lines of Arnold Palmer (1960 U.S. Open), Jack Nicklaus (1993 U.S. Senior Open) or Phil Mickelson (1990 U.S. Amateur).

To: Colorado Courses Still Recovering from September Flooding. Gift: Great spring weather and golfers eager to see facilities such as CommonGround and Mariana Butte back at full strength.

To: Winners of BMW Championship Pro-Am contest. (Info: CLICK HERE) Gift: A great time for you next September at Cherry Hills, and plenty of support for the Evans Caddie Scholarship and the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy in the meantime.

To: U.S. Solheim Cup Players and Coaches. Gift: Selective amnesia after what happened in mid-August at Colorado Golf Club.

To: Kim Eaton. Gift: After retiring from CWGA championship play after 21 wins, different-looking trophies to put on your mantle.

To: Kaye Kessler, who this year celebrated his 90th birthday and his 50th year of covering the Masters. Gift: That your ever-present smile will keep you spry as ever well into your 100s.

To: Keith Humerickhouse (left). Gift: For the winner of four straight CGA Mid-Amateur Championships, an even handful of Mid-Am titles.

To: Denver resident Jim Bunch. Gift: A “bunch” of thanks from the golf community for your years on the USGA Executive Committee and for your just-ending two years as chairman of the Western Golf Association.

To: Longtime Coloradans Mark Hubbard and Derek Tolan. Gift: A one-year stint on the Web.com Tour en route to The Big Show.

To: David Duval of Cherry Hills Village. Gift: That 2014 be the year when you regain your golf mojo.

To: CGA, CWGA and Colorado PGA. Gift: To see the fruits of all your grow-the-game labors in recent years.

To: Sam Saunders, Arnold Palmer’s grandson. Gift: To feel right at home in your new home state of Colorado.

To: The Broadmoor. Gift: That your hopes of luring a major men’s championship get some bona fide attention from the powers that be in the game.

To: Former University of Colorado golfer Emily Talley. Gift: That you can parlay your two “Big Break” appearances on the Golf Channel into a spot on the LPGA Tour.

To: Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy at CommonGround. Gift: That other programs like yourself spring forth around the country.

To: The Colorado Open Championships. Gift: Another year featuring a clean sweep of titles by Colorado golfers.

To: Craig Stadler of Evergreen. Gift: That you don’t have to wait almost nine years to get your next Champions Tour victory, unlike the last time around.

To: Mark Wiebe of Aurora, winner of the 2013 Senior British Open. Gift: That that Christmas drink taste all the sweeter coming out of a certain claret jug.

To: The new Colorado Golf Foundation. Gift: That what was started this year pays dividends for decades to come in Colorado golf.

To: Harry Johnson, winner of both the CGA Senior Stroke Play and Senior Match Play in 2013. Gift: That age 64 treats you as well as age 63 did.

To: Doug Rohrbaugh, winner of the HealthOne Colorado Senior Open, Colorado Senior PGA Professional Championship and Colorado PGA Professional Championship in 2013. Gift: Nothing we could give you could top what you’ve already received this year.
 

A place so steeped in history is reliant on a certain amount of institutional knowledge. That’s where people such as Kaye Kessler come in.

A Colorado resident for the last 28 years, Kessler has been a media fixture at the Masters since the early 1960s. In fact, this week marks the 50th Masters Kessler has covered, which puts him in some pretty rarefied air. Think of it this way: He’s spent almost a year of his life at Augusta National.

In the history of the tournament, no more than 10 journalists have covered at least 50 Masters, and Kessler is joining the half-century club this week at Augusta National.

Many golf fans consider themselves fortunate to attend even a single Masters. Yet, including this week’s tournament, Kessler will have gone to — and covered — 50 of the 77 Masters ever held.

Even at age 89, he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“It’s the first breath of spring,” he said last week before departing for Georgia. “It’s a coming-out party, a rite of spring. And it’s the only one of the majors that’s anchored. The Masters tries to look better every year — and they seem to do it. It’s just kind of an awakening. And I think it’s still the toughest ticket around.”

Kessler, a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame (he’s pictured below the sign, above), first went to Augusta National in 1963. He’s missed just one Masters since, though he doesn’t recall which year. That was when his wife, Rosemary (Ro), was hospitalized. Coincidentally, the only Ohio State football game Kaye ever missed from 1946 through ’85 was likewise because Ro was ill.

That Kessler first covered the Masters in 1963 seems only appropriate considering that year marked the first of Jack Nicklaus’ record six victories at Augusta National. Kessler, a longtime sports writer in Columbus, Ohio, chronicled Nicklaus’ golf career starting in 1950, when Jack was 10 years old.

Not only will this year be Kessler’s 50th Masters, but his 120th men’s major championship. He’s also covered 38 U.S. Opens, 12 British Opens and 20 PGA Championships. But the Masters tops the list, and it’s the one that remains on the schedule of this 2001 winner of the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism.

Kessler, who served as the first media- and player-relations director for the International PGA Tour event in Castle Rock, has covered the Masters for a variety of publications over the decades. He started the run as a sports writer for the Columbus Citizen-Journal, but he’s also written about the tournament for such national publications as Golf Digest and Golf World, and locally for Colorado AvidGolfer.

While the Masters has long been a springtime ritual for Kessler, it wasn’t until several years ago that he took account exactly how many times he’d been to Augusta National.

On the Wednesday before the 2007 Masters, new chairman Billy Payne unveiled the inaugural Masters Major Achievement Award. That year, it was given to 14 journalists who had covered at least 40 Masters each.

Each of the 14 was given an engraved hardwood plaque made from a large tree which had stood on the second hole at Augusta National. The plaque, which depicts a carving of the clubhouse, looks warped because it’s made of wood peeled off the tree. Kessler’s award hangs in his Littleton kitchen, but there’s a larger permanent one that’s affixed on the Augusta National grounds.

Honored that year, along with Kessler, were current World Golf Hall of Famer Dan Jenkins, Furman Bisher, Nick Seitz, Dave Kindred, Edwin Pope, John Derr, Al Wester, Ron Green Sr., Horace Billings, Hubert Mizell, Dave Moffitt, Dan Foster and Art Spander. In addition to the plaque, each received a commemorative book.

Of the 14, Kessler at that point ranked 10th as far as number of Masters covered, and he’s moved up since because of attrition.

Kessler, who in the 1950s turned down a full-time job offer from Sports Illustrated because it required moving his family to New York City, obviously counts some of his Masters memories among the most notable of his sports writing career.

Asked the favorites among the Masters he’s covered and Kessler first points to the improbable 1986 victory by Nicklaus at age 46 in which he shot 30 on the back nine on Sunday.

Next best in Kessler’s mind was Ben Hogan’s last appearance at the Masters, in 1967. On Saturday of that year’s tournament, Kessler and fellow writer Tom Place decided to follow Hogan on the back nine. It was a decision they wouldn’t regret as the 54-year-old Hogan shot a then-record 30 on the back side at Augusta.

“It was just chilling,” recalls Kessler, a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America. “He was damn near dying each hole (suffering the effects of age and his near-fatal head-on accident with a bus in 1949). He was weary as all get-out and was having a terrible time walking. Each hole, the crowds got bigger. It was an unbelievable sight. The word got around, and people know the roars at Augusta. On the (hilly) 18th, he has a 16-foot side-hiller for birdie, and he knocks it in for a 30 and a 66 that got him in the hunt.”

Alas, Hogan couldn’t recreate the magic in the final round and he finished 10th. A couple of months later, he competed in his final major, the 1967 U.S. Open.

All told, it’s been — and continues to be — a great ride for Kessler at the Masters.

“It’s an experience unlike any other,” he said.