Bill Loeffler, Jill McGill and Wyndham Clark — USGA champions all — awarded honorary memberships at Cherry Hills CC, where they grew up
By Gary Baines – 6/26/2025
Bill Loeffler, Jill McGill and Wyndham Clark all cut their teeth as athletes at Cherry Hills Country Club during their childhood years.
And — it should be noted — though all have gained considerable notoriety for their ability as golfers, when they’re asked about their time at the club, the sport with the dimpled ball isn’t always part of their most indelible memories there.
To wit … as Loeffler told Colorado Golf Journal this spring: “There were a bunch of kids we’d hang out with — that are still members there — we would play football on the driving range after it closed. We’d have 9-on-9 tackle football, stuff like that. You can’t do it now; you’d get sued. The memories just flood back at times, you know?”
And from McGill: “The summer between third and fourth grade, I decided to try out for the diving team, which I was on until one practice where the coach told me I was springing too far out, and needed to spring up a little bit more on my back flip. And I did, and I did such a good job that I ended up smashing my mouth on the diving board, sending all my teeth up into my nasal cavity. That was fun. So I can say I contributed to the ambulance calls to Cherry Hills.”
Though there is a golf-related twist to that story: “And it was during the Hillsdilly,” McGill said, referring to the club’s member-guest event. “I don’t know how it came about, but somebody felt really badly for me (after the diving accident) and bought some (competitors) in what would have been the Calcutta — and it paid out. I remember to this day, $340 is what I made. That was a lot of money for an 8-year-old, very generous.”
Meanwhile, Clark’s memory was indeed related to golf: “My favorite thing was getting there early and be practicing on the range before anyone else got there,” the 2023 U.S. Open champion said. “I always loved playing the par-3 course. I also loved staying super late and putting on the putting green right as the sun comes down and imagining making the putt to win a U.S. Open or a Masters or anything like that.”
We bring all this up because on Wednesday night at Cherry Hills, Loeffler, McGill and Clark were all awarded honorary memberships at the club just south of Denver. Loeffler and McGill attended the event, with Clark participating via Zoom as he’s competing in the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic this week — a late addition to his playing schedule.
Besides having grown up as the kids of Cherry Hills CC members, Loeffler, McGill and Clark also share this distinction: they’ve all won USGA championships. In fact, McGill has won three different ones — the U.S. Women’s Amateur (1993), the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links (1994) and the U.S. Senior Women’s Open (2022). Clark captured the U.S. Open title two years ago, and Loeffler won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 1986.
And they all took a big step toward elite-level golf while playing at Cherry Hills as kids.
“If I wasn’t at home, I was at Cherry Hills,” Loeffler said. “Early on, I would be dropped off when we were still (living at) Cheesman Park. My dad said I had to caddie before I putt or hit any balls or anything. At that time, the caddiemaster didn’t like members’ kids caddying, so I’d hardly ever get a loop. I’d end up on the putting green putting for hours and hours.
“There was a time you could take your shag bag down between (holes) 11 and 5 where there was an open area. I would hit balls one way and then turn around and hit them back. I’d go back and forth for hours because dad didn’t want to pay for range balls. Then often in the evenings I would take my dog and we’d go walk the Little Dry Creek and look for golf balls and just have a blast.”
After a childhood of spending considerable time at the club, Loeffler became a member in his own right in 1983 and remained so for the next 37 years.
“I was totally surprised” when told about the honorary membership, he said. “I had joined the club in ’83 and left it about five years ago just because I never used it. We were thinking about possibly leaving Denver. It killed me to write the resignation letter because we’d been there since ’65 (when his family joined). To leave all your friends, then to be invited back, it was just an incredible deal. I kind of lost it actually when they told me.”
Likewise, Clark was a fixture at Cherry Hills back in the day.
“I would say 90 percent of my time was spent at the golf course (at Cherry Hills),” he said. “If I played a tournament, I’d go play the tournament if it was in Colorado, then I’d come back the same day and go practice at Cherry Hills. If I was preparing for the tournament, I’d be at Cherry Hills. If I didn’t have any tournaments in sight and I just wanted to hit balls or practice or play or do anything, I was at Cherry Hills. So most of my childhood growing up was spent at Cherry Hills. … It was honestly the biggest blessing for me.”
Meanwhile, McGill’s family lived not far from the 14th hole at Cherry Hills for a time, and she used the access to good effect.
“When nobody was out there, getting ready for the high school championships, I went out there with a shag bag of balls, hitting them into the 14th green with an 8-iron,” she said. “And my dad (Gary) would run over and fix the pitch marks. I don’t know if they’ll revoke my honorary membership for that or not.”
Of course, all three have gone on to great things in golf, and each has been inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.
Loeffler claimed a CGA Junior Match Play, plus a state high school individual title at Cherry Creek, then he won a CGA Stroke Play in 1976. He earned three victories in the prestigious Broadmoor Invitation, which drew many of the nation’s top amateurs. Another CGA title came in the inaugural CGA Mid-Amateur (1987).
After competing on the PGA Tour for three years in the early 1980s, Loeffler won three Colorado Open titles — just Dave Hill, with four, has more — and one Colorado Senior Open. He won the Colorado PGA Professional Championship three times, and the Rocky Mountain Open once.
On the national/international level, besides earning the 1986 U.S. Mid-Amateur title in 1986, Loeffler won the PGA Assistant Professional Championship in 1992 and the Senior PGA Professional Championship in 2007. He played in the 1988 Masters — in addition to the 1979 U.S. Open and the 2001 PGA Championship — and helped the Americans to a Walker Cup win in England in 1987. In his days as a senior, he played in a U.S. Senior Open and three Senior PGA Championships.
Meanwhile, McGill occupies some rarefied air as the winner of three different USGA championships. The only other golfers to have accomplished that? Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer JoAnne Carner and Carol Semple Thompson.
In Colorado, McGill has the distinction of winning the individual title in the first sanctioned girls state high school championship, in 1990. She also prevailed in the CWGA Junior Match Play as a teenager in 1988. As a college golfer at the University of Southern California, she led the Trojans to a runner-up team finish in the NCAA national championships in 1994. That same year, she captured the title in the prestigious Broadmoor Ladies Invitation. Years later, she was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame.
But it was at USGA championships where McGill has particularly made her mark. It tells you plenty that no one — NO ONE — has won more different USGA championships than she has. And besides her three victories, she finished runner-up in the ’94 U.S. Women’s Amateur.
In addition, McGill played regularly on the LPGA Tour for 15 years, recording two-dozen top-10s and earning $2.37 million. She’s competed in 371 LPGA events in all, and though she never won on that circuit, she owns three runner-up finishes and two third places.
As for Clark, in Colorado he won a CGA Junior Stroke Play title by 11 shots, two 4A state high school individual titles while at Valor Christian (including prevailing by eight strokes in 2012 as a senior after posting rounds of 64-64) and the 2010 CGA Amateur at age 16 as he became the youngest champion of that event since 1971. Perhaps not coincidentally, Clark not only won the 2010 state amateur at Boulder Country Club, but Pac-12 Conference individual and team championships at BCC seven years later. Also during his junior golf days, Clark was presented the prestigious Byron Nelson International Junior Golf Award in 2012.
Five times, he qualified for the U.S. Amateur. In college, after twice finishing with player of the year honors — in the Big 12 at Oklahoma State in 2014 and in the Pac-12 at Oregon in 2017 — Clark was one of three finalists for both the Fred Haskins Award and the Ben Hogan Award, each awarded to the best of the best in men’s college golf. With Clark helping lead the way, Oregon finished runner-up in the 2017 NCAA nationals.
After turning pro in 2017, it took Clark just one year on what is now known as the Korn Ferry Tour to earn his PGA Tour card. He broke through for his first PGA Tour victory at the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship, where he beat Xander Schauffele by four. And the following month came his major championship victory at the U.S. Open, where he fended off Rory McIlroy (runner-up) and Scottie Scheffler (third place). That made Clark the third graduate of a Colorado high school to win the U.S. Open, joining Hale Irwin (1974, ’79 and ’90) and Steve Jones (1996).
In 2024, Clark added PGA Tour victory No. 3 as he shot a 12-under-par 60 to set the course record at Pebble Beach Golf Links in what turned out to be the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. In that round of 60, Clark sank an astonishing 215 feet worth of putts, including one from off the green on No. 12.
With that, Clark has been ranked as high as No. 3 in the world. He became the first Colorado high school grad since Hale Irwin in 1991 to compete in the Ryder Cup, and the first to play in the Olympic men’s golf tournament.
“I owe a lot of my success in my career to Cherry and the upbringing I had there,” said Clark, who recently purchased a residence in the Denver area where he’ll spend some of the summertime. “I was very fortunate to play at Cherry Hills. It’s amazing how great of a place that is. I was able to hone my skills there. I just feel so honored to have grown up there. Now, to come back later and be spending my summertime in Denver where I grew up and to get an honorary membership is just amazing.”
But while Clark was riding high through much of last year, when he won at Pebble Beach, represented the U.S. at the Olympics and the Presidents Cup, and was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame — 2025 has been a different matter. He has only one top-10 finish on the PGA Tour to his credit this season and apologized publicly for two temper-related incidents — one throwing a club at the PGA Championship and one damaging lockers at Oakmont Country Club after missing a cut by one in this month’s U.S. Open.
One of his better performances this year came at last week’s Travelers Championship Signature Event, where he opened with a 64 and finished 17th.
Off the course, earlier this month the AJGA event named for Clark, The Wyndham Clark presented by the CGA, was held at Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster, and Clark participated in a Zoom conference with the junior competitors there.
At a later date, Clark is planning to conduct a two-hour clinic at Cherry Hills for the club’s junior golfers.
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