A week after finishing third in a Symetra Tour event in Sioux Falls, S.D., Huffer chalked up another top-10 on Sunday by tying for eighth in the Garden City Charity Classic in Garden City, Kan.

Huffer (pictured in a Symetra Tour photo) remained in 17th place on the season-long Symetra Tour money list, but is now about $10,300 out of 10th place. If she can climb into the top 10 and finish there after the final four tournaments of the year, she’ll be a member of the LPGA Tour in 2019.

Sunday’s performance marked Huffer’s fourth top-11 finish of the 2018 season.

In Garden City, she posted rounds of 68-66-71 for an 11-under-par 205 total, which left the 2013 winner of the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open five strokes behind champion Allyssa Ferrell.
 

Boulder Native Cunningham in Good Shape to Earn Web.com Tour Card: Boulder native and former Louisville resident George Cunningham finished third on Sunday at the Mackenzie Investments Open in Montreal, marking his fourth top-four showing of the season on PGA Tour Canada.

Cunningham — grandson of the late Chuck Melvin, who played in six Colorado Cup matches — posted an 18-under-par 270 total, finishing a stroke out of a playoff that was won by Blake Olson. Cunningham shot rounds of 68-67-71-64 and made nine birdies on Sunday.

Cunningham, winner of the GolfBC Championship in June, is in very good position to earn a Web.com Tour card for 2019. The top five finishers on the PGA Tour Canada money list for the year after next week’s season finale will graduate to the Web circuit, and Cunningham is currently No. 3 on that list.
 

On Sunday, despite a double bogey on her final hole, Huffer shot a 4-under-par 66 and tied for third place at the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Greatlife Challenge.

It was the seventh top-four finish of Huffer’s Symetra career, including her second this year as she placed second in the Prasco Charity Championship in June.

Just as importantly, Huffer (left) moved up from 30th to 17th on the 2018 Symetra money list. After the upcoming final five events of the season, the top 10 players on that list will earn their LPGA Tour cards for 2019.

Huffer, the 2013 CoBank Colorado Women’s Open champion, shot rounds of 69-68-71-66 for a 6-under-par 274 total. She finished five strokes behind champion Linnea Strom.

Knous 16th on Web Finals Money List: Jim Knous of Littleton lost some ground in his quest to secure PGA Tour playing privileges through the Web.com Tour Finals, but he remains on pace to secure his card.

The former Colorado School of Mines golfer finished 25th Sunday in the DAP Championship in Beachwood, Ohio, the second event of the Web Finals. After two more Finals events, the top 25 on the Finals money list will earn PGA Tour cards for the 2018-19 season. Knous currently stands 16th.

Sunday marked Knous’ third straight top-25 showing on the Web.com Tour, following finishes of fourth and 10th.

Upcoming in the Finals are the Albertsons Boise (Idaho) Open Sept. 13-16 and the Web.com Tour Championship Sept. 20-23 in Atlantic Beach, Fla.

Toledo Cracks Top 10 for First Time in 2018: Considering how the last couple of tournaments have gone for former Castle Pines resident Esteban Toledo, his first top-10 finish on PGA Tour Champions in almost a year didn’t look likely.

Yet a trip north to Calgary, Alberta, Canada yielded a season-best eight-place showing.

Toledo, a four-time winner on the senior tour whose previous best showing this year was a 12th place, followed up 61st- and 69th-place showings in his previous two PGA Tour Champions events with the top 10 in the Shaw Charity Classic.

The former boxer shot rounds of 66-67-67 for a 10-under-par 200 total, which left him five strokes behind champion Scott McCarron.
 

The former University of Colorado golfer on Sunday recorded her fourth top-seven finish of 2018 on the Symetra Tour by placing seventh in the Danielle Downey Credit Union Classic in Rochester, N.Y.

Coleman (left in an LPGA.com photo) moved up to 21st on the 2018 Symetra Tour money list with $24,794. At the end of the season — after nine more events — the top 10 on that list will earn LPGA Tour cards.

Coleman shot rounds of 70-72-66-72, giving her an 8-under-par 280 total in Rochester. She finished four strokes out of a playoff won by Eun Jeong Seong. The former CU golfer made two birdies and two bogeys on Sunday. For the week, she carded an eagle and 14 birdies.

Coleman played on the LPGA Tour in 2017, making one cut in 10 tournaments.
 

Current Colorado resident Becca Huffer, winner of the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open in 2013, was runner-up in the Symetra’s Tour Prasco Charity Championship in Cincinnati.

The showing matched the best of Huffer’s career on the Symetra Tour. She was also second in an event in September 2016.

The Littleton High School graduate (pictured in LPGA photo) shot rounds of 69-66-70 for an 11-under-par 205 total, which left her four strokes behind champion Muni He.

Also placing in the top 10 on Sunday was former University of Colorado golfer Jenny Coleman (73-68-68–209), who placed seventh.

Meanwhile former Coloradan Wyndham Clark posted his fourth top-five finish of the year on the Web.com Tour, making him look better and better to earn a PGA Tour card by finishing the year in the top 25 on the regular-season Web money list. He currently sits sixth on that list.

Clark played his final eight holes in 4 under par en route to a 4-under 67 on Sunday at the Lincoln Land Championship in Springfield, Ill. That gave him a 20-under 264 total. Anders Albertson won the title at 259.

Earlier this year, Clark has recorded finishes of second, third and fourth place on the Web.com Tour.
 

Stadler (left), winner of the 2014 Waste Management Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour and four events on the Web.com Tour, hasn’t competed on the PGA Tour since 2015 due to a stress fracture in his left hand. He played in the Digital Ally Open on the Web.com Tour last summer, but withdrew after one completed round.

“It’s a long, stupid story, but in the long run I ended up getting cut (having surgery) last August,” Stadler said. “I still wasn’t sure that was going to fix anything, but it took six, eight months. I was kind of able to swing January, February of this year. It really rapidly got better the last few months. I’ve been pretty much been pain-free for the last couple months.”

At the Rust-Oleum, Stadler went 71-69-71-68 for a 9-under-par 279 total, which left the 38-year-old eight strokes behind champion Chase Wright. The Kent Denver graduate made an eagle, five birdies and three bogeys in the final round. Another Colorado product, Wyndham Clark, also tied for 22nd place (73-68-67-71).

Stadler is on a major medical extension from the PGA Tour, and when he returns to that circuit, he’ll have 26 events left on that extension, needing to earn $717,890 in those events to keep his exempt status on the PGA Tour.

Stadler won the Colorado Open in 2002 and the CGA Match Play in 1999 and ’02.

CoBank Colorado Senior Open Champ Notches Top-10 on PGA Tour Champions: John Riegger parlayed his victory earlier this month in the CoBank Colorado Senior Open into a ninth-place finish on PGA Tour Champions, in the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa.

Riegger, who won a PGA Tour Champions event in 2013, now owns eight top-10 showings on that circuit, but managed his first since 2016.
In Des Moines, he shot rounds of 69-67 for an 8-under-par 136 in the weather-shortened event. Tom Lehman won with a 131 total after weather washed out Sunday’s action.

Another Top-10 on Symetra Tour for Ex-Buff Lee: Former University of Colorado golfer Esther Lee finished a professional-best seventh on Sunday and notched her third top-10 since May 1 on the Symetra Tour.

Lee carded rounds of 70-69-69 and posted an 8-under-par 208 total in the Four Winds Invitational, which put her three strokes behind winner Maia Schechter in South Bend, Ind.

Since the beginning of May, Lee has finished 10th, eighth and seventh on the Symetra Tour, in addition to missing two cuts.

Jobe, who lived in Colorado from 1970 to ’99 before moving to Texas, finished a season-best fifth on Sunday in the PGA Tour Champions’ Insperity Invitational in The Woodlands, Texas. In his last two tour stars, Jobe has placed ninth (with Scott McCarron) in the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf team event and fifth at the Insperity.

Jobe (pictured) made six birdies in his Sunday round of 4-under-par 68, which left him with a 9-under 207 total. He endd up two strokes behind champion Bernhard Langer, who notched the 37th PGA Tour Champions victory of his career.

Jobe finished third in last year’s U.S. Senior Open, shooting a third-round 62 in the process. This year’s Senior Open is set for The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs June 28-July 1.

Saunders Emerges from Drought with Top 10 on PGA Tour: Former Fort Collins resident Sam Saunders had missed the cut in four of his previous six PGA Tour starts and hadn’t cracked the top 40 in an event since mid-February, but that didn’t stop him from a top-10 finish on Sunday in the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, N.C.

Despite playing his last five holes in 2 over par on Sunday, Saunders tied for ninth place in the event, ending up seven strokes behind winner Jason Day.

Saunders posted rounds of 70-69-68-72 for a 5-under-par 279 total.

It’s the second top-10 of the PGA Tour season for Saunders, who finished eighth at the CareerBuilder Challenge in January.

Ex-Buffs Coleman, Lee, Childs earn top-10s on Symetra Tour: Three former University of Colorado golfers recorded top-10 finishes Sunday in the Symetra Tour’s IOA Invitational in Milton, Ga.

Former LPGA Tour player Jenny Coleman rebounded from a first-round 78 to post back-to-back 69s and share sixth place. Esther Lee, who played her final three seasons at CU after transferring from Duke, and Emily Childs, who played as a freshman at CU before going to Cal, tied for 10th place.

Coleman’s even-par 216 total left her four strokes behind champion Elizabeth Szokol. In notching her best Symetra Tour showing since placing third in February 2016, Coleman made a total of nine birdies in the final two rounds.

Lee, who earned her first Symetra top-10, went 74-71-72 to check in at 217 along with Childs, who carded rounds of 75-70-72. Childs had four top-10s last year on the Symetra circuit.

Silvers who played for UNC from 2009-13, rallied from a six-stroke deficit on Sunday to force a sudden-death playoff in the IOA Championship in Beaumont, Calif.

But Meadow — a four-time All-American at Alabama, where she won nine times — birdied the final hole in regulation, then drained a 40-foot birdie on the same hole in the playoff to foil Silvers’ title hopes. The former UNC golfer gave her long birdie putt a good run in the playoff, but it slipped just to the right of the cup.

Earlier, Silvers (pictured in a Symetra photo) birdied the 16th and 17th holes to take the outright lead in regulation, but bogeyed No. 18, leading to the playoff. Meanwhile, Meadow, a former LPGA Tour player, birdied four of her last seven holes — including the playoff — en route to claiming the $15,000 first-place pay check.

“I was pretty nervous. I have never been in a playoff before,” Silvers said on symetratour.com. “It was fun to be in that position. Obviously, I’m super bummed that I didn’t finish it off, especially now that I know I was coming into 18 with a one-shot lead.”

Silvers, a 2014 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier who advanced to the final stage of LPGA Q-school last fall, closed with a 1-under-par 71 on Sunday, posting a 4-under 212 total for 54 holes.

The runner-up showing was the best of Silvers’ Symetra Tour career.

For the scores from the IOA Championship, CLICK HERE.
 

The German, who earned conditional status on the Latinoamerica circuit earlier this year, birdied two of his last four holes in the final round — both par-5s — to shoot a 1-under-par 71.

The 23-year-old (pictured) carded scores of 69-70-65 the first three days and finished at 13-under-par 275, ending up seven behind champion Ben Polland and earning $4,725. Paul made eight birdies in Saturday’s 65.

Paul, who turned pro last April and owns the best career scoring average in CU golf history (71.7), played 12 events as a rookie on the Web.com Tour last year, making four cuts with a best finish of 27th. He missed advancing to the second stage of Web.com Q-school by one stroke in the fall.

In January, Paul posted his first professional victory, winning the Pro Golf Tour’s Red Sea Ain Sokhna Classic in Egypt. The Pro Golf Tour is a satellite circuit that feeds the European Challenge Tour.

Elsewhere in professional tour golf on Sunday, Becca Huffer of Denver made a hole-in-one in the final round and finished 14th in the Symetra Tour’s season-opening Florida’s Natural Charity Classic in Winter Haven, Fla. The former CoBank Colorado Women’s Open champion went 71-78-66 for a 1-under-par 215 total, which put her nine strokes behind winner Lauren Kim.

Huffer aced the 183-yard 17th hole with a 4-iron on Sunday and added a birdie on No. 18 to close her round. For the day, she made one eagle, five birdies and a bogey. 

The 2013 CoBank Colorado Women’s Open champion shot rounds of 71-68-72 for a 5-under-par 211 total, which left her seven strokes behind champion Erynne Lee.

Huffer (pictured) made four birdies, two bogeys and a double bogey on Sunday, leading to a payday of $2,273. She moved up to 66th on the 2017 Symetra money list with $8,318.

It was the best showing for Huffer on the Symetra Tour since she tied for second late last September at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout.

Meanwhile, another player with local connections, Josh Creel of Cheyenne, Wyo., who started his college career at the University of Colorado, finished 10th Sunday in his first Web.com Tour start of the season, at the Digital Ally Open in Overland Park, Kan.

Creel, who Monday qualified for the tournament, carded rounds of 70-66-66-65 for a 17-under-par 267 total. He was bogey-free in the final round. He finished eight strokes behind winner Zecheng Dou.

In amateur golf on Sunday, Colorado State University player Max Oelfke won the German International Amateur Championship, He recorded four consecutive rounds of 68 for a 12-under-par total of 272, then won a playoff against Lukas Euler, making birdie on the third extra hole.

It was Oelfke’s second title this month. Earlier, he won the Luxembourg International Amateur.

Huffer, winner of the 2013 Colorado Women’s Open, tied for second Sunday in the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout in El Dorado, Ark. The 2008 CWGA Player of the Year shot rounds of 70-73-68 for a 5-under-par 211 total. She finished two strokes behind Madelene Sagstrom, who leads the 2016 Symetra Tour money list.

Huffer had an eventful final round, make an eagle at the par-4 11th hole to go along with four birdies and two bogeys.

Huffer’s previous best finish in a Symetra Tour event came at the Visit Mesa Gateway Classic in February 2014, where she placed third.

“If I can put a few more top-five results together, then skipping Stage II (of LPGA Q-School) is a possibility,” Huffer told SymetraTour.com. “I’ve been playing really well heading into the end of the season and I am feeling good about my game.”