Richard Bradsby and Jon Lindstrom team up to set scoring and margin-of-victory records at CGA Senior Four-Ball; sickness isn’t enough to keep Robin Bradbury and John Hornbeck from repeating as super-senior champs
By Gary Baines
BROOMFIELD — Repeat after me.
That seemed to be the theme of the day at the CGA Senior Four-Ball at the Broadlands Golf Course on Thursday.
That’s because both the senior and the super-senior divisions of the championship featured the same winners as a year ago.
Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Jon Lindstrom and Richard Bradsby, both of Lakewood Country Club, did last year and this year what they accomplished in 2017 and ’18 at the open-division CGA Four-Ball — which is to say going back-to-back as champions.
And Robin Bradbury of Berthoud and partner John Hornbeck of Saratoga in southern Wyoming did likewise in the super-senior division, for competitors 65 and older.
Lindstrom (left) and Bradsby took home the CGA Senior Four-Ball trophies for the second straight year.
For Lindstrom and Bradsby, they set the CGA Senior Four-Ball standard in a couple of respects:
— This championship dates back to 1982, and though records are not complete, Lindstrom and Bradsby’s 10-stroke victory on Thursday is by far the largest of what is on record, with the next-largest being John Hamer and Gary Potter’s six-stroke win in 1993. Before this week, no one in the 21st century had claimed the Senior Four-Ball title by more than three shots.
Owen Ellis and his partner Jeff Crosier, the 2024 champions, were among those chasing the leaders. Ellis was asked on the 10th tee how he was doing, and said, “Trying not to get run over by the steamroller behind us” — meaning Bradsby and Lindstrom.
— As for scoring total, the winners apparently blew past the record there too — again, based on known CGA Senior Four-Ball results from the past. Bradsby and Lindstrom’s 25-under-par better-ball total for three rounds was four better than the standard they set last year.
Asked if those records meant anything to them, Lindstrom said with a laugh, “Kick ass. Heck yeah it does. Even though we made the turn and I think we were six or seven up still — maybe more — there was no letting up. We wanted birdies.”
Added Bradsby: “We wanted to be the low score every day.” And, by the way, they accomplished that with scores of 63-63-65.
With this birdie on No. 15 Thursday, Bradsby went 5 under par for six holes.
As for winning the CGA Senior Four-Ball in consecutive years, they were the first to go back-to-back in the 21st century — since Jerry Kidney and Les Mattocks successfully defended their title in 1999.
“Back to back is always cool,” Lindstrom noted.
At the Broadlands, Bradsby and Lindstrom took a seven-stroke lead into the final day and never let it get remotely close. David Johnson of Fort Collins and Steve Lind of Timnath closed with a 66 to finish second, 10 strokes behind. Chris Cole of Windsor and Dave Formanek of Fort Collins placed third, at 13 under.
David Johnson (left) and Steve Lind finished a distant second on Thursday, 10 strokes behind Lindstrom and Bradsby.
For the week, Lindstrom and Bradsby recorded 25 birdies without ever posting a better-ball bogey or worse. On Thursday, that included Bradsby making five birdies in a six-hole stretch to begin the back nine. “I'm pretty happy because I've been playing some pretty poor golf this spring,” he said. “This was a nice flipping of the switch.
“I’ve owed Jon for at least a couple of (those kind of hot streaks). He has those runs a little more than I do.”
Said Lindstrom: “Every time I hit it close (today), he hit it closer.”
The funny thing is that when Lindstrom was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame last year, he joked about his role in winning quite a few partner events over the year — with the likes of Bradsby, Dean Clapp, Chris Carlson, Brooks Ferring and Tom Lawrence. “And I mean this from the bottom of my heart,” Lindstrom said then, pausing for effect: ‘You’re welcome.’”
Asked if there was a little of the reverse going on on Thursday, Bradsby said, “Today, maybe.” Added Lindstrom: “Yes, for sure.”
This week marked the fifth time the two have partnered for victories in four-ball events. They now have two in the CGA Senior Four-Ball, two in the CGA (open-age) Four-Ball and one in the Gallery Invitational four-ball in Arizona.
So what makes the two such a successful four-ball partnership?
“It's easy to play with John,” Bradsby said. “We put each other in a pretty relaxed state.”
“We play a fair amount at Lakewood together,” Lindstrom added. “We know our strengths and weaknesses, our yardages.”
“We can help each other out that way,” Bradsby noted. “We have a lot of trust.”
Lindstrom attempts a birdie putt on the 17th hole Thursday.
And, of course, both are formidable players. Lindstrom was the overall runner-up in a playoff at the 2020 Colorado Senior Open and has been the low amateur in that event four times. Bradsby has been the low-am at the CSO once. Lindstrom has claimed 15 CGA championship titles, while Bradsby has seven or eight to his credit. Bradsby was the 2025 CGA Senior Player of the Year and Lindstrom claimed that award in 2023.
In other words, each is impressive in his own right. Together, they’re very tough to beat.
And Lindstrom, who a couple of years ago was among the top-ranked senior amateurs in the country, is now rounding back into form after battling prostate cancer for the second time. After radiation treatments and medications took their toll, he went off the meds last October and can stay off them as long as his blood tests are clean.
“I feel a thousand percent better than I did even just last October,” he said. “It took a couple of months to get going, but I feel like a normal 58-year-old now instead of a 158-year old. That's how I felt.”
“He’s swinging it beautifully,” the 57-year-old Bradsby said.
John Hornbeck (left) and Robin Bradbury have had plenty of success as four-ball partners, including on Thursday as super-senior division winners.
— Super-Senior Division: As for Thursday’s other back-to-back champs, Bradbury and Hornbeck overcome some illness and rallied from a one-stroke deficit going into the final round and emerged with a one-shot win.
Hornbeck felt sick overnight and only got a couple of hours of sleep. And during Thursday’s final round, Bradbury was nauseous to the point of throwing up at one point.
“I was thinking I was going to have to finish the last round by myself,” Hornbeck said.
Despite that, they closed with a better-ball 8-under 64.
“We decided that’s the way we should always play,” Bradbury said with a smile.
Hornbeck, 68, and Bradbury, 69, finished at 15 under par after rounds of 66-71-64, with Hornbeck shooting a 5-under 31 on the back nine on his own ball. Mark Donahue of Greenwood Village and Bill Woodard of Denver were super-senior runners-up at 14 under.
Bradbury pitches onto the 18th green on Thursday.
It was the third victory in this event for Bradbury and Hornbeck as they won the Senior Four-Ball title in 2021 and the super-senior division the last two years.
“We just feed off each other, I think,” said Hornbeck, a past CGA Senior Amateur and Senior Match Play winner. “We know each other's games pretty good and when one of us is down, we usually pick the other guy up — though on the first day we didn’t do that. We both played bad on the same holes, it seemed like.”
Added Bradbury, a former CGA Senior Player of the Year: “We've played so much together. It's fun. We're good friends and we just have a good time playing together. So it's always enjoyable.”
For all the scores from the CGA Senior Four-Ball, along with the super-senior division, CLICK HERE.
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