In ever-so-tight points race, Charlie Tucker becomes latest CSU golfer to earn CGA open-age player of the year honors; other male POYs: Colin Prater, Richard Bradsby, David Delich and Ash Edwards
By Gary Baines – 11/9/2025
(EDITOR’S NOTE: ColoradoGolf.org is publishing stories on the CGA’s Players of the Year. Today’s edition will focus on the male POYs, with an article on the female Players of the Year coming in the next several days.)
It might be overstating it to say that current and former Colorado State University golfers have cornered the market when it comes to who has earned CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year honors over the last decade.
After all, Colin Prater (who played his college golf at Colorado Mesa and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and is now in his early 30s) has been a CGA overall Player of the Year three times, and Chris Thayer (a former Northwestern golfer now in his mid 40s) was the POY in 2021.
But it’s fair to say that CSU golfers have ruled the roost regarding the CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year award over the last 10 years. With CSU sophomore Charlie Tucker earning the honor for 2025, current or former Rams have claimed the award six times in the last decade. The list includes Kyler Dunkle (2016, when he played half the year with CSU and half with the University of Utah), Jake Staiano (2017), AJ Ott (2018), Davis Bryant (2019) and Connor Jones (2022).
In the open-division Player of the Year race, the points race was especially close in 2025, with the top five players finishing within 52 points of one another. To put that into perspective, Prater won the points race in 2024 by more than 260 points, with the third-place finisher in the standings almost 600 behind him.
The Ram that came out on top this year — and became Player of the Year — is Tucker, a resident of Castle Pines who calls The Ridge at Castle Pines North his home course. At 20, Tucker becomes the youngest winner of the award since Bryant, who was 19 in 2019.
Tucker is one of five male CGA players of the year named recently. The others are Prater (Mid-Amateur POY), Richard Bradsby (Senior POY), David Delich (Super-Senior POY) and Ash Edwards (Junior POY). As noted above, a story on the CGA’s female players of the year will appear on ColoradoGolf.org later this week.
Without further ado, let’s look at the 2025 highlights for each of the male players of the year:
Tucker (left) and Nick Fallin placed third in the CGA Four-Ball and qualified for the 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.
— Charlie Tucker of Castle Pines (CGA Open-Division Les Fowler Player of the Year): While some players may go into the season with player of the year honors nowhere on their radar, that certainly wasn’t the case for Tucker in 2025.
“It was definitely one of my goals going into this year,” Tucker said recently. “To be able to accomplish it was pretty cool.”
Among the highlights of the year for the 20-year-old were earning low-amateur status at his first Inspirato Colorado Open, advancing to U.S. Open final qualifying, and landing co-medalist honors — with Nick Fallin of Highlands Ranch — at a Mayetta, Kan., qualifier for the 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.
At the Colorado Open, Tucker birdied his final two holes to overtake former European Tour player Matt Zions and claim low-amateur honors. Tucker, winner of the CGA State Junior and the 5A state high school individual title in 2023, sank a 12-foot birdie putt on his 17th hole and two-putted for birdie on his 18th after hitting a stellar hybrid into the par-5 from 289 yards.
At U.S. Open local qualifying, Tucker tied for second — with a 6-under-par 65 at Collindale — to advance to final qualifying, where he came up short of a U.S. Open berth following rounds of 74-69 in Springfield, Ohio. Then in late August, Tucker and Fallin were co-medalists in a 2026 U.S. Four-Ball qualifier with a 63.
“Qualifying for the U.S. Open Sectionals was really cool in the spring because I hadn’t had the best (freshman) year in college,” he said. “Then the Colorado Open low-am was also a pretty cool experience — and a cool tournament to play well in for sure. Those were definitely my two highlights.”
As it turned out, the 80 points for winning the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball qualifying in Kansas ended up locking up the CGA season-long points standings lead for Tucker.
“The points from that kind of put it over the top, which was a pretty cool thing to see,” he said. Becoming the player of the year “means a ton. Colin has won it a handful of times; he’s a great player. And (some) CSU guys like Davis and AJ have won it as well. So it means a lot.”
Elsewhere, Tucker finished 18th at the CGA Amateur and tied for third — with Fallin — at the CGA Four-Ball a year after placing second in that event. He also won the Collindale Invitational a month after his good showing at U.S. Open local qualifying at the site.
This fall during the college season, Tucker played in all five tournaments for CSU, with a best finish of 19th place in the Wohali Classic.
Overall, Tucker felt he’s taken a step forward with his game in 2025.
“The summer before this (2024) was not a great summer for me — a step back in some ways — so this summer was definitely a big step forward with my game,” he said. “Ball-striking in general was a lot better and more where I wanted it to be. That contributed to some of my good play. So (this year) was definitely a big step in the right direction.”
This is Tucker’s second CGA Player of the Year honor as he was the Boys POY in 2023.
Colin Prater has been the CGA Mid-Amateur Player of the Year each of the last three seasons.
— Colin Prater of Colorado Springs (CGA Mid-Amateur Player of the Year): Since turning 25 in 2020, Prater has earned this award four times in six seasons, including each of the last three years. Since the CGA Mid-Am honor was first presented in 2008, only Thayer (six-time Mid-Am POY) has earned the award more.
Prater didn’t play many Colorado tournaments — by his standards — in 2025 as he traveled regularly to national events. But when he did tee it up for real in the Centennial State, he was very much in contention. He won the CGA (open-age) Match Play for the second time and finished runner-up to hometown favorite Jimmy Makloski at the CGA Mid-Am. At the U.S. Mid-Amateur, he not only made match play, but he advanced to the round of 16.
But the highlight of Prater’s season came at the 125th CGA Match Play, at Denver Country Club, where he claimed his fifth CGA open-age major title. Only two players have won more men’s open-age CGA majors than Prater — Larry Bromfield (eight titles) and Claude Wright (six). In the Match Play final, Prater defeated Jordan Jennings 9 and 8 in the scheduled 36-hole match. Of the four most lopsided CGA Match Play finals since 1990, Prater has been the winner of two of them (9 and 8 this year and 8 and 7 over Ross Macdonald in 2020).
Elsewhere, Prater represented the CGA at the Pacific Coast Amateur, tying for 18th place individually. Last year, the high school science teacher competed in the U.S. Open.
Richard Bradsby earned CGA Senior Player of the Year honors for the first time.
— Richard Bradsby of Golden (CGA Senior Player of the Year): Bradsby didn’t win either of the CGA’s Senior majors in 2025, but was close in both. In the CGA Senior Match Play, he lost to eventual champion Robert Gonzales in the semifinals. And at the CGA Senior Amateur, he finished second to winner Bill Fowler.
Meanwhile, at the Inspirato Colorado Senior Open, after being low-am last year, Bradsby placed third among the amateurs in 2025.
Bradsby earned some hardware also, winning the CGA Senior Four-Ball with fellow Lakewood Country Club member Jon Lindstrom and the senior division title at the CGA Western Championship.
Overall, Bradsby owns sixth CGA championship titles. And now he’s the owner of his first CGA Senior Player of the Year award.
David Delich, a two-time CGA Senior Player of the Year, has added a Super-Senior POY honor.
— David Delich of Colorado Springs (CGA Super-Senior Player of the Year): Delich owns two CGA Senior Player of the Year awards (2012 and ’15), and now he has a Super-Senior POY honor to keep them company.
The former Colorado College hockey standout won five CGA championships and two Southern California Golf Association senior amateur titles from 2007-15, but hand’t captured a state championship since then. Besides experiencing some near-misses in tournaments, a family-related personal issue drew much of his attention for several years.
But in 2025 Delich broke through with a victory in the CGA Super-Senior Amateur. He birdied three of his final four holes at Meadow Hills Golf Course, including a 20-footer on the 18th, to edge two-time defending champion John Hornbeck.
Later in the summer, Delich added a strong showing at the CGA Senior Amateur, tying for ninth place at age 68. Also, Delich advanced to the quarterfinals of both the CGA Senior Match Play and the CGA Super-Senior Match Play.
A victory in the Colorado Junior PGA Championship highlighted a big year for Ash Edwards.
— Ash Edwards of Boulder (CGA Boys Player of the Year): Edwards was recently named to the second edition of Team Colorado, a junior elite squad that’s part of the USGA’s national development program. And, after consistently being in contention in 2025, that’s only fitting.
Edwards, son of University of Colorado men’s golf head coach Roy Edwards, won the Colorado Junior PGA Championship by seven strokes after shooting a final-round 64. He placed third individually against a strong field at the boys Junior America’s Cup, where he led Colorado to a third-place team finish — the second-best showing ever for a boys team from the Centennial State.
At the Class 5A state high school meet as a sophomore, Edwards finished second individually, giving Fairview High School a 1-2 showing at the tournament as senior teammate Miles Kuhl prevailed. Kuhl was the 2024 CGA Boys Player of the Year.
Edwards also tied for second in the final Colorado PGA junior major of the year, the CPGA Junior Invitational. He was a semifinalist in the CGA State Junior, falling to eventual champion Brayden Forte, and posted three top-6 finishes in AJGA tournaments.
Edwards also qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur. He’s No. 106 in the AJGA international junior rankings for boys, and No. 200 according to Junior Golf Scoreboard.
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