But it was not to be for Arnold Palmer’s grandson.

The top 125 players in the FedExCup points standings after the Wyndham Championship earned spots in the playoffs. And though Saunders was in good shape to advance going into the weekend in Greensboro, N.C., he fell narrowly short on Sunday.

After going 63-68 his first round rounds at the Wyndham, Saunders (pictured) carded scores of 72-69 on the weekend, falling two strokes shy of what he needed to jump into the top 125 following the Tour’s regular-season finale. He ended up in the 129th spot in the standings.

“It was the least-enjoyable round of golf I’ve ever played in my life,” Saunders told pgatour.com on Sunday. “You don’t know if you’re going to throw up or have a heart attack. It’s worse than trying to win a tournament, tenfold. “¦ I’ve never had to birdie one hole to change my life for the entire year. And that just kills me.”

By finishing between 126 and 150 in points, Saunders will at least have conditional status on the PGA Tour next season. But he could become fully exempt by finishing in the top 25 on the money list for the upcoming four-tournament Web.com Tour Finals.

The players who finish 126-200 on the FedExCup points list will compete in the Web.com Finals, along with 75 players from the Web money list. Also figuring to play in the Web Finals are Denver native Mark Hubbard (184th in FedExCup points) and former CoBank Colorado Open low amateur Zac Blair, who finished 126th in the FedExCup points list.

One player with strong Colorado ties who will be in the FedExCup Playoffs is former Colorado State University golfer Martin Laird, who finished 57th in the regular season.

For the FedExCup points list, CLICK HERE.
 

That’s certainly been the case with the 2012 U.S. Amateur that was hosted by Cherry Hills Country Club, with CommonGround Golf Course serving as the companion course for the stroke-play portion of the championship.

We’ve noted before how several competitors in that 312-man field have moved to the forefront in the world of golf, but the last few months have particularly reinforced the point.

And the PGA Tour’s SBS Tournament of Champions that concluded on Sunday in Maui really drove home the fact that Colorado spectators attending the U.S. Amateur 4 1/2 years ago were watching the budding of something special.

The top three finishers at the Tournament of Champions — winner Justin Thomas, runner-up Hideki Matsuyama and third-place Jordan Spieth — all competed at Cherry Hills and CommonGround in the 2012 U.S. Amateur. (Thomas is pictured above at Cherry Hills in 2012.)

But the Tournament of Champions is just the latest example of 2012 U.S. Am players thriving at the highest level of golf. In fact, four of the top eight players on this season’s PGA Tour money list competed in Colorado in August 2012: Matsuyama (No. 1 on the list), Thomas (No. 2), Cody Gribble (No. 7) and Daniel Berger (No. 8).

Some recent PGA Tour highlights from 2012 U.S. Am players:

— In his five official and unofficial starts on the PGA Tour during the current wraparound season, Matsuyama has finished no worse than sixth place. He’s won twice (HSBC Champions and the Hero World Challenge) and been runner-up twice.

— In five official and unofficial PGA Tour events this season, Thomas has notched two victories (CIMB Classic and SBS Tournament of Champions), a fifth and an eighth. And on Thursday at the Sony Open in Hawaii, he carded a cool first-round 59.

— Spieth won the Australian Open in late November, marking his third win worldwide in 2016.

— Gribble won the Sanderson Farms Championship in late October, marking one of two top-10s so far this season.

— Berger has posted a second in the HSBC Champions and a ninth in the Franklin Templeton Shootout in recent months.

— Former NCAA individual champion Thomas Pieters has recorded two top-15 finishes in two tournaments on the PGA Tour this season.

— Bryson DeChambeau, winner of the 2015 U.S. Am, posted two top-6 showings on the PGA Tour in 2016.

— Also recording top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour in 2016 were Zac Blair (third in the Sony Open), Oliver Schniederjans (sixth in RSM Classic) and Cheng-Tsung Pan (also sixth in RSM Classic).

Career-wise in official PGA Tour events, Spieth owns eight wins, Thomas and Matsuyama three apiece, and Gribble and Berger one each.

And, mind you, all of the aforementioned players are still in their young to mid-20s. Spieth, Thomas, Berger, DeChambeau and Schniederjans are 23; Matsuyama and Pieters 24; Pan 25; and Gribble and Blair 26.

All told, five of the top 50 players in the world rankings — and three of the top dozen — competed in the 2012 U.S. Am: Spieth (fifth), Matsuyama (sixth), Thomas (12th), Berger (32nd) and Pieters (48th). Also currently in the top 200 in the world are DeChambeau (123rd), Patrick Rodgers (148th), Gribble (181st), Schniederjans (187th) and Pan (200th).

In case you’re wondering, here’s how some of these notable players fared at the 2012 U.S. Amateur:

— Spieth: The winner of two U.S. Junior Amateurs and the low amateur at the 2012 U.S. Open lost in the round of 64 in match play, 1 up to Pieters.

— Matsuyama: Japanese standout shot 73-72 and missed a playoff to advance to match play by two strokes.

— Thomas: Advanced to the match play semifinals, where he lost to eventual national runner-up Michael Weaver, 3 and 2.

— Gribble: Shot 75-69 and missed a playoff to advance to match play by one stroke.

— Berger: Shot 75-69 and missed a playoff to advance by match play by one stroke.

— Pieters: A round after defeating Spieth, lost 4 and 3 in the round of 32 to Canadian Albin Choi.

— DeChambeau: Three years before winning the U.S. Amateur, he lost in 19 holes in the match play round of 64 to Andrew Presley.

— Blair: The 2011 Colorado Open low amateur lost 2 and 1 in the match play round of 64 to Weaver, the eventual runner-up.

— Schniederjans: Lost 2 and 1 in the match play round of 64 to Adam Schenk.

— Pan: Lost in the quarterfinals 4 and 3 to Brandon Hagy, another current PGA Tour player.
 

The HealthOne Colorado Open championship season closed on Friday, Aug. 28 with the conclusion of the Colorado Women’s Open.

Coincidentally, but appropriately, that same weekend three veterans of recent Colorado Opens or Colorado Women’s Opens made good in very notable and significant ways.

Shane Bertsch of Parker, winner of the 1998 Colorado Open and a 10th-place finisher this year, regained his PGA Tour on Aug. 30 after toiling on the Web.com Tour for the last three years.

That same day, Kris Tamulis, who has posted two top-10s at the Colorado Women’s Open since 2010, won the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic for her first LPGA Tour victory.

And also on Aug. 30, the 2011 Colorado Open low-amateur, Zac Blair, recorded his best finish ever on the PGA Tour, tying for fourth in The Barclays. The Utah resident has since advanced to the third event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the BMW Championship — one of just four PGA Tour rookies to do so.

All in all, it’s been like a welcome blast from the past for the Colorado Open, which has featured a plethora of big-name players in its fields over the years, though primarily before the turn of the century. Indeed, participants in the Colorado Open have accounted for more than 35 major championship victories. The most successful in that regard are Sam Snead (seven major wins), Phil Mickelson (five) and Hale Irwin and Billy Casper (three each).

Blair, Bertsch and Tamulis certainly don’t fit into the World Golf Hall of Fame category, but their recent surges do bode well.

Here’s a brief look at how each fared in the Colorado Open championships, and what they’ve accomplished recently:

— Bertsch, a Denver native, is now 45 years old, but in June he claimed his third victory on the Web.com Tour — and first since 2005 — winning the Rust-Oleum Championship. With four other top-10s on the Web.com Tour this year, Bertsch finished ninth on the Web.com regular-season money list, easily good enough to regain his PGA Tour card.

Bertsch (pictured above) has played in 174 events on the PGA Tour, but just two since 2012. He’s posted five top-10s in his PGA Tour career, with the best finish being a fourth in the 2011 Frys.com Open.

Bertsch, the ’98 Colorado Open champion, returned to the tournament this year for the first time since 2002, tying for 10th place.

— In these days when ever-younger players are winning on the LPGA Tour, Tamulis (left) is an anamoly. With her recent victory at the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic at 34 years and 8 months, she became the second-oldest winner on the LPGA Tour in 2015, behind only Cristie Kerr (37). The victory came after Tamulis had gone her first 185 LPGA events without a win. The $195,000 she earned more than doubled her previous winnings for 2015. Tamulis currently sits 31st on the 2015 money list with $373,758.

The resident of Naples, Fla., finished fifth at the 2010 Colorado Women’s Open and seventh at the 2013 tournament.

— Blair (below) is certainly no stranger to the Colorado Open. His dad, Jim Blair, won the tournament twice in the 1980s. And Zac himself competed in the event three straight years beginning in 2009. He placed 34th in ’09, missed the cut the next year, and placed 18th in 2011, claiming low-amateur honors. Then he returned to Colorado the next summer for the U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club, where Blair placed fifth in stroke play (65-71–136) then lost in the round of 64 of match play to eventual runner-up Michael Weaver.

The now-25-year-old Blair, who went from PGA Tour Latinoamerica to the Web.com Tour to the PGA Tour in just six months, has continued his ascendency as a PGA Tour rookie. His fourth-place showing at The Barclays was his second top-10 of the season. The former BYU golfer has won more than $1.2 million for his rookie season, and by being one of the 70 golfers to make it to the BMW Championship, there’s the potential for much more.

“My goals the whole year were, one, to keep my card, and the second goal was to make it to the Tour Championship,” Blair said. “So I feel like I’m in a good spot. If I go out and handle my business, I can accomplish that second goal.”

Going forward, the folks at the Colorado Open championships, now with CoBank as the title sponsor, can only hope that more of the tournament’s veterans make good at golf’s highest levels, as Bertsch, Tamulis and Blair have.
 

Jordan Spieth couldn’t have been more accommodating when he paid a visit to Cherry Hills Country Club in July of 2012.

He traveled to Denver to promote the 2012 U.S. Amateur, attending a press conference at the host club. Afterward, when I asked him to come out behind the 18th green for some photos and a little additional chit-chat, he quickly obliged.

There was just one stipulation. When I asked him to hold the Havemeyer Trophy, which is awarded to the U.S. Amateur champion, he said he wouldn’t touch it. He didn’t explain, so I was left to assume that he was superstitious about holding a trophy which he hadn’t yet won.

In any case, Spieth still gladly posed next to the trophy, which was placed on the ground behind the historic 18th green at Cherry Hills, not far from where Arnold Palmer’s visor landed after a victory toss following the 1960 U.S. Open.

While Spieth didn’t ever end up getting his hands on the Havemeyer Trophy, he’s certainly been handed plenty of other hardware recently. Just in his last 3 1/2 months, he’s won three times, including earlier this month in a three-hole playoff at the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship.

But Spieth certainly wasn’t the only competitor from that 2012 U.S. Amateur — hosted by Cherry Hills, with CommonGround serving as the companion course for the stroke-play portion of the event — who has hit it big in the years since.

The noteworthy part is how quickly some of these players have made the big-time. For instance, with his Valspar victory this month, Spieth became just the fourth player since 1940 to win twice on the PGA Tour before his 22nd birthday, joining Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Robert Gamez.

“I look back at the last couple of years and sometimes it’s hard to believe all this has happened,” Spieth said this week. “It certainly happened faster than I could have imagined, but I’m taking everything in stride and continuing to work hard. I have a lot of goals that I want to achieve and so far, I feel like I’m headed in the right direction.”

Three players in the 312-man field for the 2012 U.S. Amateur are currently in the top 100 in the World Golf Rankings: Spieth (sixth), Hideki Matsuyama (16th) and Justin Thomas (84th). (Spieth and Thomas are pictured together above at CommonGround in 2012.) Other 2012 U.S. Am competitors who have made some noise on the PGA Tour this season are Zac Blair (57th on the Tour money list) and Carlos Ortiz (68th). Still other current PGA Tour players who competed at Cherry Hills three years ago are Max Homa and Patrick Rodgers.

That U.S. Am field also featured the current No. 1-ranked amateur in the world (Oliver Schniederjans) and the No. 1-ranked college player (Cheng-Tsung Pan of Washington).

Here’s a rundown on some of the aforementioned players, noting what they’ve accomplished, and how they fared at that 2012 U.S. Amateur:

— Spieth. He already had an outstanding record before coming to Cherry Hills, having won two U.S. Junior Amateurs (2009 and ’11), leading Texas to an NCAA title as a freshman, and being the low amateur at the 2012 U.S. Open. But though he was arguably the favorite at Cherry Hills — and tied for seventh place in stroke play with rounds of 69-69 — Spieth (left) lost 1 up in the round of 64 of match play to 2012 NCAA champion Thomas Pieters.

After turning pro in the middle of his sophomore season at Texas, Spieth has won twice on the PGA Tour and also prevailed in the Australian Open and the Hero World Challenge, in addition to finishing second in the 2014 Masters. March 29 Update: In his last 10 events around the world, he has posted eight top-7 finishes.

— Matsuyama. Amazingly, given his golf resume, Matsuyama faltered badly at the 2012 U.S. Amateur. Considered one of the pre-tournament favorites, he shot 73-72–145 to finish 82nd in stroke play and didn’t even make the 64-man match play bracket.

But the 23-year-old from Japan has been formidable on the PGA Tour, winning the 2014 Memorial, along with the Dunlop Phoenix title in November. Overall, Matsuyama has collected six top-10s in his last 13 events worldwide.

— Thomas. Unlike many of the other players mentioned here, the former University of Alabama standout made a deep run in the 2012 U.S. Amateur. With rounds of 65-74–139, he placed 13th in stroke play, then advanced to the match play semifinals, where he lost to Michael Weaver. The 21-year-old Thomas, who hits it a long way despite weighing just 145 pounds, has made an impact in his first full season on the PGA Tour. In his last 10 events, he’s posted four top-10 finishes.

— Blair. The 24-year-old has competed more in Colorado than others on our list as his dad is two-time Colorado Open champion Jim Blair. Zac Blair himself scored low-amateur honors in the 2011 Colorado Open. In his rookie season on the PGA Tour, Blair has notched three top-12 finishes and has won $638,048. At the 2012 U.S. Amateur, Blair placed fifth in stroke play (65-71–136) then lost in the round of 64 to Weaver, who advanced to the finals.

— Ortiz. The 23-year-old native of Mexico has notched five top-21 finishes on the PGA Tour this season. (March 29 Update: That number went up to six at the Valero Texas Open.) At Cherry Hills in 2012, Ortiz placed 39th in stroke play (75-67–142), then lost in the round of 64 of match play to Adam Stephenson.

— Schniederjans. The 21-year-old senior at Georgia Tech initially ascended to the No. 1 spot in the World Amateur Golf Rankings last June. At Cherry Hills, Schniederjans finished 25th in stroke play (74-67–141), then lost to Adam Schenk in a round-of-64 match.

— Pan. The 23-year-old senior at Washington is ranked No. 1 among college golfers by both Golfstat and Golfweek. He’s won three times in seven college tournaments this season. In the 2012 U.S. Am, he placed second in stroke play (69-65–134) and advanced to the quarterfinals of match play, where he lost to Brandon Hagy.

— Beau Hossler. Hossler, now 20, came to Cherry Hills as one of the biggest sensations as he had briefly held the lead during the second round of the 2012 U.S. Open. But Hossler faltered at the U.S. Amateur that year, missing a playoff for the final match-play berths by one stroke (72-72–144). Hossler, now a sophomore at Texas, has finished first, second and second in his last three college tournaments. He’s now No. 3 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.