After having earned her 2019 LPGA Tour card but deferring taking membership because she wanted to complete her senior season and graduate from Wake Forest, Kupcho (left in an LPGA photo) indicated earlier this month that she planned to focus on school and college golf in her final semester at Wake.

But after the team’s schedule underwent some minor tweaking, Kupcho decided to compete at Augusta National just before the Masters. The 21-year-old earned an invitation by being among the top 30 U.S. players in the final Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking of 2018. (Updated Jan. 23: Kupcho returned to No. 1 in the world rankings on Wednesday.)

Augusta National Women’s Amateur officials announced on Tuesday that 66 players have accepted invitations for the inaugural event, including 36 from outside the U.S. A 72-person field is planned.

The competitors will play the first 36 holes at Champions Retreat Golf Club in Evans, Ga., on April 3 and 4, with a practice round set for Augusta National on April 5 before the 30 players who make the cut compete in the final round at Augusta National on Saturday, April 6.

NBC will televise three hours of that final round, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (MT)

For the entire Augusta National Women’s Amateur field to date, CLICK HERE.
 

(Note: This is the first in an occasional series of U.S. Mid-Amateur articles that will appear on ColoradoGolf.org leading up to the national championship for players 25 and older being held at Colorado Golf Club and CommonGround Golf Course Sept. 14-19.)

It should go without saying that winning a USGA national championship is no easy task. And that’s even more the case for a resident of Colorado, where the population isn’t huge — relatively speaking — and trying to play golf year-around can be problematic.

All that said, when lifelong Coloradan Bill Loeffler was departing for the U.S. Mid-Amateur in the fall of 1986, his father-in-law, Ron Moore, made a bold prediction.

“It’s weird,” Loeffler said last week in reflection. “My father-in-law, Ron Moore, told my wife that he thought I was going to win the tournament when I was leaving for Mississippi, just because we had played a couple of times together.”

And, sure enough, Moore proved prescient regarding Loeffler, now a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, like Moore. Loeffler, then 30, would go on to win the 1986 U.S. Mid-Am, which drew 2,511 entrants. The event was played at Annandale Golf Club in Madison, Miss., a Jack Nicklaus-designed course that hosted a PGA Tour event for 20 years until 2014. Loeffler defeated Georgian Charles Pinkard 4 and 3 in the scheduled 18-hole championship match on Oct. 9, 1986.

Loeffler (above in a USGA photo from the ’86 championship) remains the only Coloradan to have won the U.S. Mid-Am, which dates back to 1981.

As much as Loeffler has accomplished in the game — he’s also won three Colorado Opens (tied for second-most ever, behind Dave Hill), the 1992 national PGA Assistant Professional Championship, the 2007 Senior PGA Professional National Championship, a Colorado Senior Open, a CGA Amateur and three Colorado PGA Section Champioships — he points to the 1986 U.S. Mid-Am victory as the most meaningful in his long career.

“It’s probably the best accomplishment I can think of — only because of what the Mid-Am did for me,” said Loeffler, now 62. “Not only was it a USGA championship, but it got me on the Walker Cup team (in 1987) and then into the Masters (in 1988). It was a springboard. Anytime a golfer gets a chance to win a USGA event, it’s a pretty big deal. I can’t think of anything bigger” that he’s accomplished in golf.

Indeed, though the U.S. Mid-Am victory didn’t automatically earn him a spot on the Walker Cup team or into the Masters back then, that was the de facto result of his victory in Mississippi. Coloradan M.J. Mastalir, then a member of the USGA Executive Committee, pushed for Loeffler’s inclusion on the 10-man Walker Cup team, and Loeffler ended up going 2-1 individually as the U.S. routed Great Britain & Ireland in the matches in England.

And at the time, the Masters invited the entire U.S. Walker Cup team into its field, which is how Loeffler competed at Augusta National in 1988. In the department of fortuitous timing, that was the last time an entire American Walker Cup team was invited to the Masters. On the other hand, since 1988 every U.S. Mid-Am winner has been invited to the Masters, and since 2017, the Mid-Am champ has landed a spot in the following year’s U.S. Open.

At the ’86 Mid-Am, Loeffler rode a very hot Ping putter to the title. Besides defeating Pinkard in the final, Loeffler topped one of the world’s top amateurs at the time, Randy Sonnier, 3 and 2 in the semis. Sonnier was a finalist — losing to Jay Sigel — and a stroke-play co-medalist the only previous time the U.S. Mid-Am has been contested in Colorado, in 1983 at Cherry Hills Country Club.

“That week I was really on my game,” Loeffler said of the ’86 Mid Am. “I remember putting just out-of-the-planet good. It was a great golf course, good on my eye and I was just making everything. I got past (a couple of past Walker Cuppers in match play) and I was pretty thrilled with that because I knew they were the cream of the crop in amateur golf.”

Asked specifically about the final against Pinkard, Loeffler (left in a USGA photo) said he has few specific recollections.

“I just remember being in a fog the whole finals, like it didn’t matter what he did or where I hit it, I kind of knew I was going to win,” Loeffler said. “And it was WEIRD. I used to get pretty volatile, but that day it was just surreal, like I was floating through the match and it didn’t matter what he did. If he’d have thrown three birdies at me, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Loeffler’s 4 and 3 victory ties for the second-most-lopsided margin in an 18-hole U.S. Mid-Am final. He only had to play the 18th hole once in the match-play portion of the event. And at 30, he was the event’s youngest champion at the time.

Loeffler knew something special might be in the works during the practice days — specifically when he got into a putting contest on the practice putting green with fellow former Arizona State University golfer Dennis Saunders.

“We spent a couple hours on the putting green,” Loeffler recalled. “Honest to God, I started making these putts — 50 feet, 30 feet, 20 feet. I was like, ‘What in the world is going on here?’ But they just started pouring in. We got done and Dennis said, ‘I have never, ever seen you putt like this before.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on but I’m going to try to keep this feeling for the whole week.’ And it worked.”

In fact, that Ping putter worked so well that week that the manufacturer — as has been the case since the 1970s for each major victory with a Ping putter — made a gold-plated putter with the exact specs of the one used to win the tournament and stored in a company vault at Ping headquarters in the Phoenix area.

While his putting was spot on that week, Loeffler had to manufacture a tee-to-green game to a certain extent.

“I remember getting down there and being unable to hit a draw, no matter what I was doing,” he said. “In the practice rounds playing with a couple of my ASU teammates, I finally just decided, ‘You know what? I’m not even going to fight it. I’m just going to aim down the left side and cut it — just let it work that way.’ And of course on a Nicklaus course if you cut it, sometimes it’s an advantage. I did that all week — hit this ugly kind of cut/slice thing, hit a bunch of greens and putted great. For the life of me, I couldn’t turn the ball over right to left.”

Even after winning the national title, Loeffler was frustrated with that situation to the point that he rectified it within a few days of returning to Colorado.

“When I got home from the championship, I went down to Castle Pines into their club room and decided I didn’t like the shafts in my irons so I reshafted all of them,” he said. “I was so mad I couldn’t turn the ball over. I figured it had to be the shafts; it couldn’t be me. It was just impetuous and stupid.

“I was in the club repair room and Keith Schneider (then the PGA head professional at Castle Pines) and Jack Vickers (the club founder) were having a meeting. Of course, when you change shafts you have to heat the shafts up a little bit. So I set off the smoke alarm in the clubhouse with Vickers and Keith in there in a meeting. Keith comes and just looks at me, shook his head and walked away.”

Loeffler’s golf career has been an unusual one given that he’s gone from amateur to pro to amateur to pro. After winning a state high school title at Cherry Creek, a CGA Junior Match Play and CGA Amateur in Colorado before becoming an All-American at ASU, Loeffler turned pro the first time and made it to the PGA Tour. He competed on golf’s top circuit in 1980, ’81 and early ’82, playing in 32 events. But he made only eight cuts and $5,356 during that time.

“I had a plan and got on Tour,” Loeffler said. “I set some goals and wasn’t achieving them. I wanted to kind of get on with my life, I wanted to get married to Sandy. She had her job and she wasn’t traveling with me. I stopped enjoying playing golf and I wasn’t getting better. I kind of decided, I love the game, but there’s something else to do. … It was time for a change.”

So even though he had some PGA Tour status remaining in 1982, he decided after playing poorly in U.S. Open qualifying that he’d start the process for regaining his amateur status. Three years later, he was an amateur again and played in the CGA Match Play — where he lost to eventual champion, and now longtime PGA Tour/PGA Tour Champions player, Brandt Jobe — and in the CGA Amateur.

In 1986, Loeffler won the U.S. Mid-Am, then captured the inaugural CGA Mid-Amateur title and a third Broadmoor Men’s Invitation victory the next year. But after playing on the ’87 Walker Cup team and in the ’88 Masters as an amateur — where he shot 77-79 and missed the 36-hole cut — Loeffler returned to the professional ranks in 1989, this time on the club professional side of things.

“I remember playing in the Pacific Coast Amateur in Seattle and I was pretty much broke,” he said. “It had cost say about $1,000 to play it. I finished second or third to Billy Mayfair. I was sitting at the podium and they gave me a medal about the size of a half-dollar. I looked at it and I’m like, ‘I’m starving to death, my wife thinks I’m a loser and I’ve got this half-dollar medal. I realize now my whole life is centered around golf, so it’s time for another change.’ I went back and said, ‘Sandy, I’ve got to turn pro.’ And she supported me, like she always has.”

During this second stint as a pro — which has lasted the last 30 years — Loeffler has been an owner of The Links Golf Course in Highlands Ranch and Moore, Loeffler, wife Sandy and their family built and operated the Hale Irwin-designed Highlands Ranch Golf Club from its opening in 1998 until 2011, when it was gifted to the University of Denver. And obviously Loeffler has accomplished plenty as a competitor.

But Loeffler (left in a CGA photo in 2018) has been hampered by a bad back for quite a while now, to the point that he believes his days of competing in multi-day tournaments may be behind him.

“It’s hard for me to be able to play two rounds in a row, so I think I’m pretty much done (from a competitive standpoint),” he said. “It’s my back. It gets real weak after about 12 holes. (After) two or three days, I’ve got to go on some pain meds, and I hate doing that. It’s just time. Fifty years of competing, that’s plenty. I think I’m done.”

But Loeffler still enjoys rounds of casual golf with wife Sandy, who has taken up the game, and friends.

“It’s all good,” he said. “If I play twice a week and separate the two days, I’m OK.”

And if his days competing in major events is indeed done, Loeffler has put together a stellar resume, including the 1986 U.S. Mid-Am title. And he’s happy to see the event returning to his home state this year.

“It’s tremendous. And to have it at Colorado Golf Club, one of the best clubs in the state, just a great golf course, it doesn’t get any better than that,” he said. “And it’s a great match play course with those finishes on those par-5s, 15 and 16. It’s going to be tremendous. I’m sure the field will be chock-full of ex-pros that are just great players. And in September, it’ll be perfect (weather-wise).”

If you don’t think that’s unusual, think again.

Prior to this current “drought”, you have to go back more than a half-century to find a Masters without at least one competitor with major Colorado ties.

With that in mind, we decided to dig into the records and highlight the Colorado “locals” who have shined at Augusta National Golf Club over the history of the Masters, which debuted in 1934.

Almost 25 players with significant connections to the Centennial State — either before, during or after their Masters heydays — have competed in what is now the first major of the season. A couple others have more tenuous ties to Colorado, but are interesting to note.

Here’s the rundown:

— Craig Stadler (current Evergreen resident): The Walrus, of course, didn’t move to Colorado until the 1990s, but he’s the one person to win the Masters who’s long resided in the state. In 1982, Stadler scored the biggest victory of his career. After posting rounds of 75-69-67-73–284, he defeated Dan Pohl in a playoff and slipped on a green jacket (pictured with ’81 champ Tom Watson). Stadler’s 75 remains the highest opening round by a champion.

He led by six with nine holes left in regulation, but lost ground with a 40 on the back nine on Sunday. A par on the first hole of sudden-death yielded the win.

“Walking down the fairway on No. 11, I said to myself, ‘This is easy,'” Stadler said at the time. “It looked like they all were playing for second and the only thing in doubt was by how much was I going to win. The National proved itself on Sunday again. I’ll take ’em any way I can.”

The victory was one of five top-seven finishes by Stadler at the Masters, including a third-place showing in 1988, when he ended up two back of champion Sandy Lyle. Stadler competed in 36 consecutive Masters, ending his run after playing in the 2014 event with son Kevin.

— Hale Irwin (Boulder High School and University of Colorado graduate): The World Golf Hall of Famer is best known for his three U.S. Open victories, but he was on the Sunday leaderboard numerous times at the Masters.

Overall, Irwin notched seven top-eight showings at Augusta National. He had an especially strong run from 1974-78, finishing fourth, fourth, fifth, fifth and eighth.

Of players with at least 50 rounds in the Masters, Irwin owns the seventh-best stroke average in history (72.18).

— Dow Finsterwald (director of golf at The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs from 1963-93): Finsterwald didn’t take his job at The Broadmoor until 1963, but he was regularly in the hunt at the Masters from 1957 through ’64.

The 1958 PGA Championship winner recorded five top-10 finishes at Augusta National during that eight-year stretch, including placing second and third.

Two years particular stood out for “Finsty”. In 1960, he finished third, two strokes behind winner — and good friend — Arnold Palmer. Coincidentally, two strokes is what Finsterwald was penalized — retroactively — for taking a practice putt on the fifth green during the first round, “not realizing he had violated rules” according to a newspaper account at the time.

Two years later, Finsterwald watched Palmer beat him again, this time in an 18-hole playoff, with Dow and Gary Player tying for second place. All three players finished at 8-under-par 280. The next day in the playoff, Palmer shot 68, Player 71 and Finsterwald 77.

Finsty would end up with 11 PGA Tour victories.

— David Duval (Cherry Hills Village resident): Duval moved to Colorado after the last of his 13 PGA Tour wins, which includes the 2001 British Open. There was certainly a reason he once was the top-ranked player in the world, and his record in the Masters shows that.

In the four Masters beginning in 1998, Duval finished second, sixth, third and second. In 1998, a closing 67 left him one back of winner Mark O’Meara. And in 2001, Duval made 23 birdies and also closed with a 67, leaving him two back of champion Tiger Woods.

— Ed Dudley (director of golf at The Broadmoor Golf Club from 1941 to ’63): Before the Masters took a three-year hiatus in the final years of World War II, Dudley was one of the top performers at Augusta National, where he served as the first head professional. From 1934 (the first year of what was then known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament) through ’41, he notched seven top-10 finishes. His best showing was a third place in 1937, when he ended up three strokes behind champion Byron Nelson.

Dudley, winner of 15 PGA Tour events, held jobs at The Broadmoor and Augusta National simultaneously from 1941-57 as the Augusta venue is typically open only from autumn to May.

— Paul Runyan (director of golf at Green Gables CC from 1972 to the early ’80s): The winner of two PGA Championships and 29 PGA Tour events overall, Runyan recorded four top-10 performances in the first decade of the Masters. His best showings were third place in the first Masters (1934) and in 1942, and a fourth-place in 1936.

Runyan ended up two behind winner Horton Smith in the first Masters — then known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament.

— Lawson Little: Little wasn’t a resident of Colorado, but it’s worth noting that in the summer of 1933 he made himself at home in the Centennial State. That year, the golfer from Stanford won the CGA Match Play (9 and 7 over Frank English in the final) and The Broadmoor Invitation, and finished runner-up in the Trans-Miss that The Broadmoor also hosted.

At the Masters, Little notched six top-10 showings from 1935 through ’51. His best finish was third place in 1939, when he ended up three back of winner Ralph Guldahl.

— Charlie Coe (a member at Castle Pines Golf Club late in his life): Coe, a two-time U.S. Amateur champion, posted three top-10 finishes in the Masters as an amateur. In 1961, he tied for second with Palmer, one behind winner Gary Player. Coe’s 7-under-par 281 total remains a Masters record for an amateur.

— Dave Hill (a longtime Colorado resident starting in the 1960s): At the same general time period Hill was winning a record four Colorado Opens, he posted a couple of top-10 showings at Augusta National. In 1970, he was a career-best fifth, ending up four shots behind winner Billy Casper, and five years later he placed seventh.

— Gary Hallberg (Colorado resident): Hallberg notched a top-10 in 1985 as his 2-under-par 286 total left him in sixth place, four back of winner Bernhard Langer.

— Mike Reid (attended Cherry Creek High School for one year): Like Hallberg, Reid’s best performance at Augusta National left him in sixth place at 286, in his case three behind champion Nick Faldo in 1989.

— Justin Leonard (Aspen resident): Long before moving to Aspen, Leonard notched back-to-back top-10s at the Masters, placing seventh in 1997 and eighth in ’98.

— Kevin Stadler (part-time Denver resident): Stadler posted a top-10 finish in his Masters debut in 2014, placing eighth as his dad, Craig, played in his final Masters. It’s one of two times Kevin has competed at Augusta National.

— Dale Douglass (former longtime Colorado resident and former CU golfer): The three-time PGA Tour winner had a best Masters finish of 19th in 1969.

— Steve Jones (grew up in Colorado and former CU golfer): The best Masters showing by the 1996 U.S. Open champion was 20th in 1990.

— Brandt Jobe (Colorado resident from 1970 to ’99): Among his appearances at Augusta National, the Colorado Golf Hall of Famer had a best finish of 14th in 1999.

Other players with strong Colorado connections who have made the cut at the Masters are one-time Fitzsimons resident Orville Moody (best: 18th place), former Colorado State University golfer Martin Laird (best: 20th), former Boulder resident Bob Byman (best: 34th), Colorado resident Mark Wiebe (best: 35th), and Denver native and former CU golfer Jonathan Kaye (best: 43rd). There was no cut at the Masters in 1947, but Denver’s Babe Lind, who was inducted into the first class of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1973, finished 46th as the first Colorado native to compete in the tournament. Davis Love Jr., winner of the CGA Junior Match Play in 1953 and ’54 (and the father of Davis Love III), earned a 34th-place finish at Augusta National in 1964.

Another Colorado resident who competed in the Masters — but in his case failed to make the cut — was 1986 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Bill Loeffler in 1988. Denver native Tommy Armour III also missed a cut in the Masters, in 1990.

While no “locals” will compete in this year’s Masters, at least a couple of Coloradans will play a role at Augusta National Golf Club. On Wednesday, Craig Stadler is expected to compete in the Par-3 Contest a year after tying for second in that event. And CGA executive director Ed Mate, who serves on the USGA Rules of Golf Committee, will be a rules official at the Masters for the second consecutive year.
 

That was apparent long before Wednesday, when Saint John’s Cathedral in Denver was at near capacity for the service for Nicholson, one of just three Coloradans to have served as a president of the USGA.

Nicholson, a former chairman of the Rules and Competitions Committees at the Masters and for the last 43 years a board member for the CGA, passed away on May 28 at the age of 87.

In the wake of Nicholson’s death, CBS’ Jim Nantz paid tribute to him during the network’s coverage of Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial tournament on Sunday.

And on Wednesday, a who’s who of golf from Colorado and beyond bid Nicholson a fond farewell. Among the hundreds who attended the service at Saint John’s Cathedral were Judy Bell, the Colorado Springs resident who was the first female president of the USGA; 1958 PGA Championship winner Dow Finsterwald; CBS Sports golf producer Lance Barrow; Fred Ridley, the former U.S. Amateur champion and USGA president who succeeded Nicholson as chairman of the Masters Competition and Rules Committees; executive directors of the CGA (Ed Mate) and the Colorado PGA (Eddie Ainsworth), George Solich, who originally funded the Colorado Golf Foundation for which Nicholson served as the first chairman; former USGA Executive Committeeman M.J. Mastalir; CGA president Joe McCleary; numerous members of both the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame (along with its president and CEO, former CGA president Tom Lawrence) and the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

The list could go on and on.

Obviously, there was no shortage of people upon whom Nicholson had an impact over his 87 years. It’s little wonder why he was honored as the Colorado golf Man of the Century last fall during the Century of Golf Gala at The Broadmoor.

As Ridley noted when he eulogized Nicholson on Wednesday, “When Will spoke, everyone listened.”

(Nicholson is pictured above, at left, in a USGA photo while at the 2015 USGA Annual Meeting.)

For an earlier story about Nicholson’s life, CLICK HERE.
 

And the 53-year-old native of Mexico will have another opportunity of a lifetime next month, albeit one that came about in an unusual way.

After never competing in a Masters — or even attending one — the former Coloradan will be at Augusta National in three weeks for the year’s first major championship. Though he won’t be in the field, he will be inside the ropes — as a caddie.

Toledo (pictured) persuaded fellow PGA Tour Champions player Sandy Lyle to let Toledo carry his bag for the Masters starting on April 7. Lyle won a green jacket at Augusta National in 1988.

Toledo had asked two-time Masters champ Ben Crenshaw to caddie for him last year. “I wanted to see what was going on inside the ropes,” Toledo told PGATour.com this week. “So I asked Crenshaw. I said, ‘Hey, I can donate $10,000 to your charity. Let me caddie for free and I’ll take care of the whole thing.'”

But last April was going to mark Crenshaw’s final Masters, so Gentle Ben wanted his regular Masters caddie, Carl Jackson, to do the honors.

Not one to give up, Toledo approached Lyle with a similar offer. And the Scotsman took him up on it last week, calling Toledo in Los Cabos, Mexico to give him the good news.

“He said, ‘You’re on.’ So I’m going,” Toledo said. “It will be fantastic.”
 

The 1982 Masters champion didn’t directly answer the question, but his response did give a hint: “This is awesome.”

On that day, “This” was Kevin Stadler winning his professional debut at the Colorado Open in a three-man playoff, with Craig having caddied for his son all four days.

Throughout Kevin’s years playing amateur golf in Colorado and elsewhere, and during his professional career, Craig Stadler has been his son’s biggest champion.

And that will certainly be the case this week, as well, as the two become the first father and son to compete in the same Masters. The first men’s major championship of 2014 begins Thursday (April 10), with Kevin teeing off at 5:56 a.m. MT and Craig beginning play at 6:40.

“It’s emotional in a very, very good way,” Craig Stadler, a longtime Colorado resident, said this week at Augusta National, where he and Kevin were paired for Wednesday’s par-3 contest. “I had envisioned this and knew it would happen some day. I was hoping it would happen some day. I was pretty sure. The rest was up to him.

“But it was very cool on Saturday evening registering and then walking down and (seeing our) two names next to each other on the scoreboard. That got me a little bit. That was very cool. It’s going to be just a wonderful week and I hope he plays really well, and I hope I don’t embarrass myself.”

As a former champion, Craig Stadler receives an invitation to play the Masters as long as he’d like. But while Kevin has played 244 PGA Tour events and earned more than $9 million, it wasn’t until early February that he earned his first competitive invite to Augusta National. That was when he out-dueled former Masters champion Bubba Watson to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open near Stadler’s residence in Scottsdale.

While the Stadlers certainly haven’t been as close as they used to be — Craig and Kevin’s mother, Sue, divorced in 2006, and father and son very rarely had played golf together in recent years before coming to Augusta — Craig couldn’t have been more proud when Kevin scored his first PGA Tour victory. Not only was that important in and of itself, the main reason Craig continued to play the Masters — he’s now 60 years old — was in the hope that Kevin could join him in the field.

“If and when I do bow out, which probably will be this year, I can’t think of a better way to do it than playing with your son in the same tournament,” Craig said. “I mean, it’s awesome.”

As the son of a Masters champion, Kevin Stadler has attended the tournament many times over the years, even as a 2-year-old when his dad won in 1982. But before this year, Kevin had only played Augusta National once — during a winter visit with his dad when Kevin was 18 or 19.

“It was great to be able to tag along and walk around here,” Kevin Stadler said on Monday. “I couldn’t wait for April every year, when I was a kid, to come out here and just run rampant around the golf course and watch him and watch all the kids of other people play. I used to love tagging around at tournaments, watching the golf. It was what I got the most enjoyment out of when I was a kid.”

Obviously, being around all that good golf rubbed off on Kevin Stadler. In 1997 while attending Kent Denver, he won the state high school championship at Collindale Golf Club in Fort Collins. Two years later, at Fort Collins Country Club, Stadler claimed the title at the CGA Match Play. And in 2002, he added a second Match Play crown at the Country Club at Castle Pines, leading to him being named the CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year.

Also in 2002, besides Kevin winning the Colorado Open, he teamed up with Craig to earn the title in the Father/Son Challenge, which features past PGA Tour greats and their sons in a team event.

Two years later, Kevin Stadler won on the Web.com Tour the same week Craig prevailed in a Champions Tour event, making them the first father-son duo to win tour events on the same week since current Colorado resident David Duval and father Bob managed the feat in 1999. The last time Craig and Kevin Stadler have competed together on the PGA Tour was at the 2010 Bob Hope Classic.

This week, the Stadlers are making more father/son history. And Craig is reveling in how Kevin has stepped up his game in recent years. This season, Kevin has made 10 cuts in 11 events — he missed last week in the Shell Houston Open, his first MC since August — and ranks 16th on the PGA Tour money list with more than $1.67 million.

For his part, Craig Stadler has won 13 times on the PGA Tour and nine on the Champions Tour, and his victory last June in the Encompass Championship gave him the tour record for most time between victories (almost nine years).

“I’m so proud of the way he’s played the last three or four years,” Craig said of Kevin. “He’s been close a zillion times and finally got it done. …. He’s become a wonderfully consistent player. … I’m just going to kind of stand on the sidelines and watch, which is all I want to do, and just be supportive and root him on and hope more Phoenixes happen in the future — a lot more.”

For now, Kevin Stadler is looking forward to playing an Augusta National course that is in one way very familiar and in another very new to him.

“It’s going to be really, really fun to be on the inside of the ropes,” the 34-year-old said. “I feel like I know this place pretty well but I’ve never, ever played it (in competition). So it’s going to be a blast. I just don’t really know what I’m getting myself into, but it’s going to be really enjoyable.”
 

Of course, when you start with the 1986 Masters, the bar is set a bit on the high side.

That remains one of the great major championships ever — and sporting events in general — but what burned the tournament in Reilly’s memory goes beyond the fact that Jack Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine the final day to win his 18th and final major at age 46.

“That was my first one ever. I was so scared,” Reilly said in a phone interview last week, before he made his usual early-spring trek to Augusta National for this week’s Masters. “I’d only gotten on the magazine (Sports Illustrated) the year before. They gave me the golf beat because Dan Jenkins left to go to Golf Digest.

“I had to ask Jack Nicklaus on Wednesday if he was broke. I had never met Jack Nicklaus. My dad and I used to sit and watch him; he was our hero. And the first thing I’ve got to say to Jack Nicklaus is, ‘Mr. Nicklaus, we hear you’re broke.’ I just wanted to crawl, but we had this great tip that he was broke. He said, ‘come with me,’ and he takes me up to the Champions Locker Room (at Augusta National).

“I can barely hear him talk because my knees are knocking together so loudly. I’m just gagging. I’m looking at all the (champions’) lockers and it’s amazing. And he said, ‘I’m not broke, I’m just overextended.’ He explained it all to me. But then, he goes on to win the thing (after being six shots behind with 10 holes remaining). I’ve never seen anything like it since.

“That might be the greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed in sports in terms of just sheer ‘slap your own face, spit out your dentures’ amazing. It was (like) North Carolina State dunking the ball to win the (1983 NCAA basketball) title in Albuquerque on an airball. For sheer amazement, there’s Tiger (Woods) in ’97 at the Masters beating people by 12 when he was 21 years. And probably the most amazing achievement I’ve ever seen in sports was him winning four (majors) in a row. Nothing matches that, I don’t think.”

Reilly — who grew up in Boulder, graduated from Boulder High School and the University of Colorado, and remains a resident of Denver — said he received a letter this year from Billy Payne, Augusta National Golf Club chairman, saying that the writer had reached the 25-Masters-covered milestone. That, the letter said, entitled Reilly to one free pass for the week, in addition to his media credential. So for the first time, Reilly’s twentysomething son Jake will accompany him to Augusta National.

Reilly has covered about every sports event imaginable over the last 35 years. He’s been a sports writer for the (Boulder) Daily Camera, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated and ESPN. Along the way, he’s been named national sports writer of the year 11 times.

In June, he’ll be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, with John Elway being his presenter at the ceremony. That puts the 56-year-old Reilly into some elite company, joining the likes of legendary sports writers Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, Red Smith, Jim Murray, Dick Connor, Jenkins, Frank Deford, Bud Collins, Will McDonough, Peter Gammons and Mitch Albom. Oh, and guys named Ronald Reagan and John Wayne have also been enshrined.

At his request, Reilly will go part-time at ESPN on July 1. He’ll no longer write his popular ESPN column, but still will do TV work for the sports network and possibly write more books and screenplays.

Though Reilly has made a name writing about all different sports — besides his work for newspapers, magazines and web sites, he’s penned 11 books (not counting a few he co-authored) and a screenplay (Leatherheads, starring George Clooney) — he has a special place in his heart for golf. Five years ago, he and son Jake spent two days at Hyland Hills in Westminster while Rick hit 694 shots on the nine-hole, 673-yard, par-3 North course, trying for his first hole-in-one. Jake, who once made an ace barefoot during tryouts for Denver East High School at City Park Golf Course, was along to snag missed shots with a baseball mitt. Rick sometimes hit 20 shots per hole.

It wasn’t until day 2 and shot No. 694 that Reilly hit pay-dirt. It came on a less-than-demanding 52-yard hole.

“So when people say, ‘What are the odds of making a hole-in-one?’, I know: 694 to 1, not counting the rest of my life. In the same way that a woman who can’t get pregnant for years and years, then the couple adopts, and a month after they adopt they get pregnant … a month after (the Hyland Hills ace), on the way to Augusta, I made a hole-in-one.”

And it’s probably no coincidence that several of Reilly’s books are centered around golf. Asked which was the most fun to write, he doesn’t hesitate:

“‘Who’s Your Caddy’ is by far the most fun,” he said. “If that didn’t sell a single book it still would have been the most fun book I ever did. First, I love caddies. They give you the best quotes, they have the most fun, they find the best bars. I just love caddies. So to be a caddie for 12 different people — Jack Nicklaus, Tom Lehman, David Duval, Donald Trump, a blind guy, a $50,000 nassau guy, Jill McGill, John Daly … It was so fun.”

That said, it’s not surprising that the Masters is one of Reilly’s favorite events to cover.

“After 26 of them, it’s like you know every inch of it, you know?” he said. “Every year is amazing, though. I remember after Jack won in ’86, me and Jaime Diaz (now editor-in-chief at Golf World) were so pumped up and we had a bunch of stories still to write, but we had our golf clubs in the trunk of his car. And we got out just outside the gate (of Augusta National) and there was this big gravel parking lot with a big water tower there and we hit drivers off the gravel parking lot. I don’t know what we wanted to do, but I’ll never forget hitting drivers and trying to hit that water tower. Then we had to go back and write all night. I wrote until 7 a.m., I remember that. That was crazy.”

Then after finishing a 3,500-word “game story” for SI, Reilly tried to be one of 20 lucky media folks to get to play Augusta National on Monday, the day after the Masters ended.

“They said, ‘Get here on Monday; the list goes up at 7:30 a.m., and the first 20 guys to sign up get to play,'” he said. “I got there at 7:30 a.m., and 101 Japanese guys were in front of me. I think they spent the whole night out there. And I just went back and went back to sleep.”
 

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.

The former Colorado State University golfer, who had been having a poor PGA Tour season by his standards, turned things around in emphatic fashion by winning Sunday at the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio.

A victory in the last tournament before the Masters was the only way left for him to gain an invitation to the first major championship of 2013, and Laird made the most of that narrow window of opportunity by punching his ticket with a stellar performance.

Laird tied the course record at the TPC San Antonio in Sunday’s final round with a bogey-free 9-under-par 63 to fend off Rory McIlroy, the No. 2-ranked player in the world. Laird’s 14-under 274 total was good for a two-stroke victory over McIlroy.

It was the third win of Laird’s PGA Tour career, and his first in more than two years.

“I’ve probably been asked 30 times in the last couple of weeks, ‘Are you in Augusta, are you in Augusta?'” Laird said Sunday afternoon. “Everytime I’d say ‘no’ it hurt me.”

Besides landing a berth in the Masters — which will mark his 11th staight major — the Scotsman became the first non-American to win on the PGA Tour in 2013. U.S. players had prevailed in the first 14 events of the season.

Few people would have expected Laird to win in Texas given how things had been going this season. His best official finish this year was 34th place, and he missed the cut in last week’s Shell Houston Open. All told, he made just four cuts in his first eight events of 2013.

In fact, Laird hadn’t had an official top-25 finish on Tour since last July. But a four-hour practice session while at the Houston Open apparently turned things around.

“I came in here quietly confident, even though my record this year has been poor to say the least,” said Laird, who started working with a new swing coach, Randy Smith, last September. “But golf’s a funny game. It doesn’t matter what you did two weeks ago. It turns around pretty quickly.”

The 2004 CSU graduate came into Sunday in seventh place, five strokes out of the lead. But his nine-birdie, no-bogey round vaulted him to victory.

Using his anchored putter, Laird birdied No. 8 to tie for the lead, and he grabbed the top spot outright with another birdie on 12. And he won going away with back-to-back-to-back 15-foot birdie putts on Nos. 16, 17 and 18.

“I know how good Rory is, but it doesn’t matter if it’s Rory or Jim (Furyk) or Billy (Horschel), if someone’s behind me making birdies like they were, I know I’ve got to keep making birdies,” Laird said. “That was a pretty strong leaderboard at the top there.”

Even McIlroy had to admit that Laird’s final round was just too strong to overcome. After Laird put his old putter back in the bag in San Antonio — the one with which he won the 2011 Arnold Palmer Invitational — the Scotsman needed just 22 putts in the final round. 

“A 63 in these conditions is phenomenal,” McIlroy said. “… Martin just played too good and holed so many putts. It was hard to keep up.”

Sunday’s victory was worth $1.116 million for Laird, who vaulted to 15th on the 2013 PGA Tour money list with $1,185,200.

For complete results from the Valero Texas Open, CLICK HERE.