Wrapping up the countdown of the top Colorado golf stories of 2024

By Gary Baines – 12/30/2024

Here we are in the waning days of 2024, so there’s no time to be wasted in posting our second and final installment of our Colorado golf stories of the year. We published Nos. 25 through 13 last week, leaving the top dozen for today — in addition to an honorable-mention list.

As with last week’s roundup, we’ll count down toward No. 1 to preserve some suspense. So here we go, starting with the No. 12 Colorado golf story of the year:

12. The 49th president of the Colorado PGA looks a lot like the 40th as Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kyle Heyen of Hiwan Golf Club returned to the role he also held two decades ago, helping out the organization in a bind. A CPGA board member since 1998 — and a national PGA of America Hall of Famer — Heyen originally served as the association’s president from 2004-06. Heyen becomes the fifth person in history to served non-consecutive terms as president of the Colorado PGA, joining Warren Smith, Gerald King, Vic Kline and Paul Babb. Perhaps not coincidentally, three of those five are national PGA of America Hall of Famers: Smith (inducted in 2005), Kline (2005) and Heyen (2021). Another Colorado PGA president, Dow Finsterwald (1972) is also of part of that Hall of Fame. READ MORE

11. Colorado native and former University of Denver women’s golf team captain Sara Montgomery recently took the reins as the new president of the CGA, becoming the third female to hold that position since the association integrated with the CWGA at the beginning of 2018. (Previous women who have served as CGA president during that time are Juliet Miner — the co-president with Joe McCleary in 2018 — and Janene Guzowski, 2019-20.) Montgomery, a former Boettcher Scholar who graduated from Fort Morgan High School, is scheduled to serve as president of the CGA board of directors for the next two years. READ MORE

After 43 years of being employed at Castle Pines Golf Club, PGA general manager Keith Schneider will still be a presence at the club after being named an honorary member in 2024.

10. Keith Schneider, a mainstay at Castle Pines Golf Club since its founding, is leaving “at the top” after 43 years at the club. But the longtime PGA professional won’t be a stranger at the site of the 2024 BMW Championship after being made an honorary member. Schneider is retiring at year’s end after roughly 23 years as the PGA head professional at the club, followed by two decades as the PGA general manager. He played important roles as Castle Pines hosted 21 Internationals on the PGA Tour, then this year’s BMW Championship. READ MORE

9. Longtime Steamboat Springs resident Verne Lundquist did his best to keep his emotions in check as his 40-year Masters broadcast run on CBS concluded in April. Lundquist uttered a couple of the most memorable broadcast lines from Augusta National — one each involving Jack Nicklaus (1986) and Tiger Woods (2005) — after making his Masters TV debut in 1983. He was recently voted a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. READ MORE

8. It was a big year for former University of Colorado golfer Jeremy Paul. Early in the season, he recorded his first Korn Ferry Tour victory, and he parlayed that into earning a 2025 PGA Tour card. With the top 30 players in the season-long Korn Ferry Tour points earning exempt status on the PGA Tour, Paul finished No. 21 on the list. His cause was helped by a fifth-place finish in July at The Ascendant presented by Blue at TPC Colorado. He also posted a top-10 at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship. Paul’s first PGA Tour event of 2025 will also mark his career debut on that circuit. Paul’s twin brother Yannik, also a former CU golfer, has won once on the DP World Tour and is No. 173 in the World Golf Rankings. READ MORE

7. From the department of jaw-droppingly low rounds of golf in Colorado … In 2024, there were at last two rounds in the 50s shot on championship-length, regulation golf courses in the Centennial State. In an official high school tournament, Austin Barry, a senior at Fossil Ridge H.S., made an eagle and 11 birdies en route to a 13-under-par 59 at a Northern League tournament held Aug. 26 at Harmony Club in Timnath. About the same time — Aug. 20, to be precise — former 3A state high school champion Tristan Rohrbaugh did Barry one better, firing a 58 in a casual round from the tips at at Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs. Rohrbaugh carded three eagles and eight birdies in a bogey-free round of 14 under par. Rohrbaugh’s dad, Doug, was the PGA head professional at Ironbridge from 2005-17 and won the Colorado Senior Open in 2013. READ MORE

The 2024 class of Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductees, from left: Gene Torres’ son, Gene, representing his father; George Solich, Joe Assell, Jennifer Kupcho, Wyndham Clark and Pat Hamill.

6. A record-matching Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductee class of six people drew what is believed to be a record crowd of 420 to the induction dinner at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center on Dec. 1. Enshrined on that night were a couple of three-time tour winners — Wyndham Clark (PGA Tour) and Jennifer Kupcho (LPGA), plus prominent businessmen George Solich, Pat Hamill and Joe Assell, and the late Gene Torres, who won a Colorado Open and a state high school title. At 27, Kupcho is believed to be the youngest inductee in CGHOF history. READ MORE 

5. In one of the year’s most under-publicized accomplishments for a golfer from Colorado, Connor Jones of Westminster won the season-long Men’s Elite Amateur Series, which includes all of the top summertime amateur tournaments in the country leading up to the U.S. Amateur. By earning the Men’s Elite Amateur Cup, the former Colorado State University golfer landed a berth in the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship in November. Jones capitalized on that opportunity by making the cut as a rookie pro in his PGA Tour debut and finishing 65th. Jones, the 2022 CGA Player and the Year and a round-of-32 qualifier in last year’s U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club, recorded three top-5 finishes in the seven Elite Amateur Series events. He placed fourth in both the Pacific Coast Amateur and the Southern Amateur, and was fifth in the Sunnehanna Amateur. READ MORE

4. It was certainly an unforgettable year for Colorado Springs high school science teacher Colin Prater. Besides he and his wife welcoming their second child, Prater became one of the rare Colorado amateurs to qualify for the U.S. Open in the 21st century, joining the likes of Derek Tolan (2002), Tom Glissmeyer (2003) and Steve Irwin (2011). He was one of just two amateurs to have advanced through U.S. Open local and final qualifying in 2024. 

All told, Prater competed in a remarkable four USGA championships this year, with the others being the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Mid-Amateur and U.S. Amateur Four-Ball (with Jimmy Makloski). And he advanced to match play in two of the three USGA tournaments which feature stroke-play qualifying immediately followed by five or six rounds of match play. He made it to the round of 32 at the U.S. Four-Ball and at the U.S. Mid-Am.

Then in Colorado — at an Eisenhower Golf Club site that was only about 20 minutes from his home — Prater won the CGA Amateur for the third time, having previously prevailed in 2016 and ’20. He became the oldest winner of the event in 25 years , and the first three-time winner of the CGA Amateur in over 50 years. Not surprisingly, Prater was named the CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year and the CGA Mid-Amateur Player of the Year for the third time in the last five years. READ MORE

Among Davis Bryant’s many accomplishments in 2024 was winning the Inspirato Colorado Open at his home course.

3. Davis Bryant of Aurora has long been a very accomplished golfer in Colorado. As a junior player, the student-athlete from Eaglecrest High School won all four Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado majors in which he competed in 2017 and ’18, claimed the 5A state title in 2017 and was named the 2017 JGAC Boys Player of the Year. In 2018 he helped Colorado win the Junior America’s Cup team title for the first time ever. He went on to claim the 2019 CGA Amateur and earn CGA Player of the Year honors that season. He also won one individual title while at CSU and twice captured the Southwestern Amateur championship before turning pro after competing in the 2023 U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club.

But in the last six months of 2024, Bryant took things to another level. After recording his first pro victory at the Wyoming State Open — where he made an albatross — he captured the Inspirato Colorado Open title at his home course, beating former PGA Tour player Jim Knous in a playoff and earning $100,000 in the process. In doing so he became just the second Coloradan in the last decade to earn a Colorado Open victory. (This year’s Colorado Open featured a field dotted with prominent names, including David Duval and Michael Block.) 

Bryant also won a tournament in Nebraska. In addition, he built a foundation for the future by how he performed in the three stages of DP World Tour qualifying. And in the last stage, a final-round 62 helped not only secure a 2024-25 DPWT card but led to a third-place finish, by far the best showing from an American. (Dan Erickson, whose family has significant ties to northern Colorado, also earned a DP World Tour berth.) READ MORE

In his DP World Tour debut, Bryant made the cut and placed 42nd in the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open, held on the island in the Indian Ocean shortly before Christmas. 

Wyndham Clark is the proud owner of the course record at historic Pebble Beach Golf Links, where he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February.

2. A season after Wyndham Clark posted his first two PGA Tour victories, with one coming in the U.S. Open, it was another big year for the Denver native and Valor Christian high school graduate. The most notable accomplishment — but certainly not the only one — came in February at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he picked up PGA Tour victory No. 3. But it was how he did it that really set it apart. In the third and final round — the fourth round ended up being canceled due to weather — Clark sank a remarkable 215 feet worth of putts, including a 26-footer for bogey from just off the green on No. 12, which technically doesn’t count toward his official “putting” distance total, though he did use his putter for the stroke. The result was a 12-under-par 60, which established the course record at 105-year-old Pebble Beach Golf Links. In the round — with lift, clean and place in play — he made two eagles, nine birdies and a bogey.

The next month, Clark posted back-to-back runner-up finishes in big-time events, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship. In the latter, a 180-degree lipout on final hole that would have forced a playoff left him “pretty gutted.”

Also in 2024, Clark played in his first Masters, was featured in a Netflix “Full Swing” epidode, surpassed $25 million (and $26 million) in official career PGA Tour earnings and represented the U.S. in the Olympics.

In addition, he played on the U.S. team that defeated the Internationals at the Presidents Cup — where he made his debut — and was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on Dec. 1.

All in all, a very eventful year for the golfer who honed his game at Cherry Hills Country Club.

Brothers Duffy (left) and George Solich were big reasons why the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club was a rousing success.

1. The PGA Tour returned to Colorado for the first time since 2014, and the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club proved a big success in numerous ways. If there was any doubt about that, it was dispelled when the event was named the PGA Tour Tournament of the Year for 2024 — as it was in 2014 when the BMW Championship was contested at Cherry Hills. Another major indicator: the 2024 BMW set a tournament record for fundraising for its sole beneficiary, the Evans Scholarship for caddies. This year’s edition brought in $10.2 million, with the previous record for the event being $5.6 million for the 2021 tournament that was held near Baltimore. Attendance for the week at Castle Pines in late August was 138,500.

Competing on the longest course in PGA Tour history — over 8,100 yards — 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley scored the victory. The tournament proved one of the tougher tests of the year on the PGA Tour as the winners of just four tournaments had lower scores — relative to par — than Bradley did at Castle Pines (-12): the U.S. Open (-6), the Memorial (-8), British Open (-9) and the Masters (-11).

Brothers George and Duffy Solich, former Evans Scholars who played integral roles at the 2024 BMW Championship, were inducted into the Western Golf Association’s Caddie Hall of Fame the week of the tournament. READ MORE

Honorable Mention Selections

— Chilean-born Cristobal Del Solar lit it up after a final-round weather delay to set the scoring record at The Ascendant presented by Blue — and earned his 2025 PGA Tour card. A rare par-4 ace was one of the highlights of the tournament. READ MORE

Ashley Kozlowski had a memorable 2024, including winning the CGA Women’s Stroke Play.

— Ashley Kozłowski posted the biggest win margin at the CGA Women’s Stroke Play since the Kupcho era; the Littleton resident also earned a berth in U.S. Women’s Am; Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton rallied for the Women’s Mid-Am victory — her 30th CGA title. READ MORE

— University of Colorado and Boulder High School graduate Hale Irwin, a two-time U.S. Senior Open champion, was named the honorary chair for the 2025 Senior Open that The Broadmoor will host. READ MORE

— Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Dennis Lyon earned another national award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, this one for an advice column. READ MORE

— Five people were voted into the 2025 Colorado Golf Hall of Fame induction class: amateurs Robert Polk and Jon Lindstrom, superintendents Lance Johnson and Rollie Cahalane, and longtime PGA pro Tom Apple. READ MORE

— Anne Kelly, the head coach for the CU women’s golf team since 1997, officially retired at the end of the 2023-24 season, ending the longest tenure for a female head coach in school history. Kelly, who announced her intentions in 2023, was replaced by Madeleine Sheils, who previously served as the associate head coach of the CU women’s team.

— Kris Franklin overcame a five-shot deficit on the back 9 to win the CGA Women’s Senior Stroke Play for the fourth time, defeating Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton in playoff at Franklin’s home course. Also in 2024, Franklin made the cut in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. READ MORE

Steve Ivan swept the CGA’s senior majors in 2024.

— Steve Ivan went bogey-free twice in three rounds to win his third CGA Senior Amateur. He became just the fifth player to sweep CGA senior majors in a single season more than once. Ivan overcame Jon Lindstrom, one of the world’s top-ranked senior amateurs, to win his second CGA Senior Match Play. Ivan has made the title match in the event five times since 2018. READ MORE

— Geoff Keffer added to his record total of Colorado PGA Dow Finsterwald Player of the Year honors. The other Section POYs were Doug Rohrbaugh (Senior), Ashley Tait-Wengert (Women) and Andy Connell (Associate). READ MORE

— Coloradans Hudson Blake and Isaiah Fowler qualified at Hazeltine for the 2025 Drive Chip & Putt National Finals. READ MORE

— Birthday boy Tristin Goodwin bucked a trend, becoming the youngest winner of the Colorado PGA Professional Championship in 40 years. READ MORE

— Dillon Stewart became the third Coloradan in the last four years to win the Sinclair Rocky Mountain Open in Grand Junction. READ MORE

— Cathy Matthews-Kane earned the Colorado PGA’s highest honor, being named the Golf Professional of the Year. READ MORE

— Coloradans Ashley Kozlowski (Canadian Women’s Amateur) and Lauren Lehigh (Tour championship on Annika Women’s All Pro Tour) scored runner-up finishes in prominent national/international tournaments. READ MORE

— Colorado boys swept the Colorado-based 2024 AJGA tournament titles, with Miles Kuhl, Tyler Long and Austin Hunt prevailing. Meanwhile, Landon Houska claimed an AJGA championship out of state. READ MORE

— Todd Creek Golf Club will host an Annika Women’s All Pro Tour event starting in 2025. READ MORE

— Ash Edwards of Boulder, 15-year-old son of CU men’s golf coach Roy Edwards, defeated 2024 U.S. Amateur qualifier Miles Kuhl in the semifinals, then Austin Hunt of Highlands Ranch in the final to win the boys title in the Colorado PGA Junior Match Play. 

— Part-time Coloradan Hollis Stacy received the prestigious Legacy Award from the Robert Trent Jones Society — at the Air Force Academy. READ MORE

— Coloradan Monica Lieving, the 2023 women’s World Long Drive Champion, scored her first WLD victory of 2024. READ MORE

— Calli Ringsby held off a rally by Kaylee Chen to become the oldest winner of the CGA Women’s Match Play in 20 years. READ MORE

— A big rally allowed Coloradan Matt Schalk to qualify for his first USGA Championship — a U.S. Senior Open. READ MORE

— Colorado college golfers Hunter Swanson and Max Lange ousted two-time runners-up Drew Stoltz and Drew Kittleson at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball. Swanson and Lange advanced to the Sweet 16 before losing. READ MORE

— Erie’s Logan Hale capped her high school career with a 16-shot win in the 4A state tournament. She joined Valor’s Brenna Higgins (5A) in repeating as state champ. Prospect Ridge’s Hope Torres denied Maddy Bante a 3-peat. READ MORE

— After more than 30 years with a Colorado-based golf show, Jerry Walters turned off the mic for ‘In the Fairway’. READ MORE

— Sabrina Iqbal became the latest CU golfer to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. READ MORE

— Jon Lindstrom of Denver won by 3 at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship, becoming the second straight Coloradan to prevail at the event. READ MORE

— Guinness world record or not, Ptarmigan Country Club’s Craig Chester still going strong after shooting his age — or better — well over 1,300 times. READ MORE

— The CSU women posted their program-record third team victory of the 2023-24 season. READ MORE

— Attendance at the Golf Expo surpassed 9,000 for the first time since 2019. READ MORE

— Coloradan Jim Knous went out on a high note, notching a top-30 finish at the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open to cap his career as a full-time player. READ MORE

— Eleven Colorado caddies, including seven from the Solich and Broadmoor Caddie & Leadership Academies, earned full tuition and housing Evans Scholarships. READ MORE

— After dropping for the previous two years, golf rounds played in Colorado in 2023 took a noticeable jump.  READ MORE

About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com