He and his partner Braden Baer won the regionals at TopGolf in Centennial in 2016 and advanced to the national semifinals in Las Vegas before bowing out.

Then this year, Kupcho and former University of Northern Colorado teammate Conner Barr again won the regional title — on July 30 in Centennial — to advance and again made the eight-team match-play stage of the national event in Las Vegas. This time, however, Kupcho and Barr fell in Sunday night’s quarterfinals 289-238 to a team from Dallas-Fort Worth.

So that’s two top-eight finishes nationally in the last three years for Kupcho, the older brother of women’s NCAA Division I champion Jennifer Kupcho, who earned her 2019 LPGA Tour card on Saturday. Steven Kupcho, the 2012 CGA Amateur champion from Westminster, will compete this week in the second stage of Web.com Tour Q-school in McKinney, Texas.

Twenty-three two-person teams from around the country competed at TopGolf Las Vegas in the Tour Championship, where $50,000 went to the winning team. Eight teams emerged from two heats of preliminary competition to earn spots in the match-play bracket. Kupcho and Barr (pictured, with Kupcho at left) finished second in their heat and were seeded third in the match-play bracket.

A team from Austin, Texas claimed the title.

In Topgolf, players hit microchipped golf balls at targets with varying point values. In the Topgolf Tour competition, the players alternate shots.

Though the Centennial Topgolf location is the only one currently operating in Colorado, it will soon have company. Topgolf announced last month that it has broken ground on a second location in the Denver metro area, in Thornton at I-25 and E. 160th Ave. The 65,000-square-foot, three-level facility is scheduled to open to the public in late 2019. It will have 102 climate-controlled hitting bays, a restaurant and three bars. There will be 250 HD televisions, a rooftop terrace with fire pits and 3,000 square feet of space devoted to private events.

The Centennial Topgolf opened in August 2015 and employs 500, the same number that is expected in Thornton.
 

It was certainly a nice consolation prize.

Cole Nygren of Longmont, who turned pro after finishing fourth in the CGA Amateur at Sonnenalp Golf Club in August, was in Las Vegas this week trying to Monday qualify for the PGA Tour’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. He fell a shot short of earning a spot in the field as two other Coloradans — Tom Whitney of Fort Collins and Jim Knous of Englewood — were among the four players who qualified.

But the next day, Nygren’s stop in Las Vegas paid off as he improbably won the All Pro Championship at the inaugural Major Series of Putting while competing against a field that featured PGA Tour veterans Brad Faxon, John Cook, Tommy Armour III and Colt Knost.

Tuesday night’s victory in the two-day event was worth $15,000 for Nygren. Not bad considering the entry fee was $1,000 and that Nygren was unaware of the event until Monday.

“It’s pretty fun to come out and putt against guys like Colt Knost and Brad Faxon,” Nygren (left) said on GolfDigest.com. “When you’re playing against guys of that caliber, there’s not too much pressure because you’re not expecting to win.”

Nygren, a former Cal Poly golfer, defeated Knost, the 2007 U.S. Amateur champion, in the MSOP match-play final, 3 and 2. Knost, who will compete in the Shriners Hospitals event starting on Thursday, had beaten Faxon in the semifinals of the 16-player match-play portion of the event. The tournament was held on synthetic grass at a 20,000-square-foot “putting stadium” where the course was designed by Jack Nicklaus’ company.

Nygren drained his first putt of the scheduled 18-hole final and led throughout, one-putting three times on the back nine. (Nygren and Colt are pictured below in a golfdigest.com photo.)

The $15,000 payoff was welcome for Nygren, who went to the Web.com Tour Q-school this year but failed to advance beyond the first stage.

“It’s just incredible,” the 22-year-old told Golf.com. “I had no expectation to win with so many PGA Tour guys and veterans in the field. I’m taking this money and I’m going to use it to enter a bunch of tournaments.”

The All Pro Championship was one of 10 separate contests — held over the course of 10 days — at the Major Series of Putting.

The winner of another event — the one with the top payout — also has Colorado connections. Taylor Montgomery — son of 1987 Colorado state high school champion Monte Montgomery, who grew up in Grand Junction — captured a $75,000 first prize on Sunday in the MSOP Stroke Play Championship that had a buy-in of $5,000. Taylor Montgomery played his college golf at nearby UNLV and Monte is now the general manager at famed Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.

“I’ve grown up playing in a lot of pressure situations with my dad being at Shadow Creek,” 22-year-old Taylor Montgomery said on GolfDigest.com. “I’ve been putting for money for a while, and I’ve seen some crazy stuff out there, so it’s kind of normal to me.”

For both Montgomery and Nygren, it was the biggest paydays of their young pro careers.
 

The two Westminster residents went undefeated in alternate shot match play to win the round-robin competition in the four-team Midwest group.

Then in the single-elimination knockout stage, Kupcho and Bear defeated a team from Atlanta 140-124 in the quarterfinals (in a competition dubbed TopShot Advanced) before losing to eventual national champions Virginia Beach 169-84 in the semifinals. Virginia Beach defeated San Antonio in the finals to win $50,000.

Kupcho and Baer had won the regional Topgolf Tour title in August at the Topgolf location in Centennial. (The two are pictured above, with Baer at left.)

Kupcho, a former University of Northern Colorado golfer, was the CGA’s Les Fowler Player of the Year in 2012, the year he won the CGA Stroke Play, now known as the CGA Amateur. Kupcho is the older brother of Jennifer Kupcho, currently the top player on the women’s college golfer of the year watch list. Baer, who played his college golf at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, made it to the round of 16 at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship in May with teammate Cole Nygren.