Davis Bryant will indeed try to defend title at Inspirato Colorado Open, where no one has won back-to-back since the ’70s; also in field are 4-time PGA Tour winner Sean O’Hair and 2024 runner-up Jim Knous
By Gary Baines – 7/18/2025
A certain up-and-coming player on the DP World Tour — one with enough accomplishments in Colorado over the last decade to fill a nice-sized trophy area — will be playing in next week’s Inspirato Colorado Open.
Davis Bryant of Aurora, who in the last few weeks has posted his first two top-10 finishes on the DPWT and made his PGA Tour debut, will attempt to become the first back-to-back champion at the Colorado Open since Dave Hill in 1976 and ’77. The defending champ confirmed via text on Friday morning that he’ll tee it up at his home club, Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in northeast Denver, where the tournament starts Thursday and runs through Sunday, July 27.
A 25-year-old graduate of Eaglecrest High School and Colorado State University, Bryant has been on quite a run over the last year or so. During that time, he’s won the 2024 Wyoming State Open and the ’24 Colorado Open, plus a tournament in Nebraska, and has advanced to the second stage of PGA Tour Q-school and earned his 2024-25 DP World Tour card by placing third in the final stage of that Q-school.
Then came a 10th-place showing in late June at the Italian Open, and backed that up with a fourth-place finish BMW International Open in Munich, Germany. That led to him making his PGA Tour debut last week at the ISCO Championship, where he missed the cut. And now, the former CGA Player of the Year will defend his Colorado Open title at his home course, where he won $100,000 last year and will be going for the $50k first prize next week. Last summer, he became the first Colorado resident — full- or-part-time — to win the Colorado Open since then-part-time Boulderite Jonathan Kaye prevailed in 2017.
Bryant won on just about every level of amateur golf while growing up in Colorado. He claimed a state high school title, four state junior majors and a CGA Amateur, plus recorded an individual victory in a college tournament and prevailed in two Southwestern Amateurs before his professional successes of the last year-plus.
Bryant’s parents have long both worked at GVR, Matt as the PGA general manager and Julie as the tournament director for the Inspirato Colorado Open Championships, the COO of the Colorado Open Golf Foundation and the executive director of the First Tee GVR.
Davis Bryant will be part of a formidable field next week at GVR, where a $200,000 purse will be on the line.
Sean O’Hair, winner four times on the PGA Tour, is also in what will be a 144-man field, as is Sam Saunders of Fort Collins, the grandson of Arnold Palmer who has competed in 159 PGA Tour events but is now largely retired from tour golf.
Another former PGA Tour player, Colorado native Jim Knous, also is scheduled to tee it up at GVR, where he lost in a playoff to Bryant a year ago.
Also in the field are former Colorado Open champs Derek Tolan and Zahkai Brown — both Coloradans — Wil Collins, Jimmy Gunn, Turk Pettit and Sam Saunders (this one from Albuquerque).
Others scheduled to compete at GVR: Chris Korte, who this week is playing his fourth PGA Tour event of the last year; Connor Jones, the 2024 Elite Amateur Series winner who has competed in Korn Ferry Tour tournaments the last two weeks; AJ Ott of Fort Collins, who won the Wyoming State Open on Sunday; former Coloradan Brandon Bingaman, who has played in two PGA Championships, including this year’s; Geoff Keffer, owner of a record nine overall Colorado PGA player of the year awards; former University of Colorado golfers Justin Biwer and Derek Fribbs; Zach Gomez of Westminster, who just qualified for the U.S. Amateur; and former U.S. Am champ Tyler Strafaci. Also competing will be Floridian Blake Dyer, who shot 59 at DU Golf Club in Highlands Ranch to qualify for the championship.
The field at GVR will be cut to the low 60 players and ties after two rounds.
For all the 2025 Colorado Open entrants, CLICK HERE. (Note: Eleven additional players will qualify on Monday at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora.)
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