With her first major victory in over 7 years, Coloradan Becca Huffer becomes the first 3-time winner of the Colorado Women’s Open
By Gary Baines
DENVER — Seven years and five days.
It’s been exactly that long since Becca Huffer of Monument won a major golf tournament by her standards.
On May 31, 2019, she emerged with the Colorado Women’s Open trophy in the most unusual of fashions, as Yealimi Noh, a 17-year-old who has since won once on the LPGA Tour, lost in a playoff to Huffer after leading by three going into the final hole of regulation and by seven with six holes to play.
Then on Friday, again with younger brother Zach serving as her caddie in what is now the Inspirato Colorado Women’s Open, Huffer won in markedly different fashion. After faltering with three consecutive bogeys starting on No. 15 at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, she confidently drained a 7-foot birdie putt on No. 18, which proved the difference. And, after a seven-year personal victory drought, Huffer made it back to the winner’s circle.
“I’ve been in the running quite a few times over the years; it wasn’t like I wasn’t playing well,” she said. “But getting a win is harder than it seems sometimes.”
So in the 32 years of the Colorado Women’s Open, the golfer who grew up in south Denver, graduated from Littleton High School and now lives in Monument becomes the tournament’s first three-time champion, having previously won in 2013 and ’19.
“It’s awesome,” the 35-year-old former CGA Women’s Player of the Year said. “And it’s fun to finally get it done after a couple years of being really close.”
Huffer’s 7-foot birdie on No. 18 ended up being the difference on Friday.
Indeed, Huffer just added to the most stellar resumé in Colorado Women’s Open history. He now owns three victories, four runners-up and a third place. Just in this decade, she has a victory (2026), two second places (2021 and ’23) and a third (last year).
With Friday’s payday of $50,000 — a standard-setter for state and regional women’s golf opens — Huffer has now earned $175,218 as a pro at the Colorado Women’s Open. That’s No. 1 on the career money list, more than $32,000 in front of second-place Clariss Guce of Artesia, Calif. Perhaps not coincidentally the first, second and third-place finishers on Friday are No. 1, 2 and 3 on the CWO all-time money list — Huffer, followed by Guce and Haylee Harford Sanchez of Cortland, Ohio.
“You know, it’s almost a joke for some people out there,” Huffer said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve won the Colorado Open 18 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, but I do play well there every year.’ It’s one where it’s a fun event for me. In a way it’s less pressure. Coming down the stretch (Friday), I started to feel it a little bit. But overall, it’s a fun one for me to get to play, and I think it helps my game as well.”
Huffer, chipping to the ninth green, was 7 under par through 12 holes on Friday.
In addition, Huffer became the first player with significant Colorado connections to win the CWO since Jennifer Kupcho in 2020. Plus, the reigning Inspirato Colorado Open (Jim Knous) and Colorado Women’s Open champions grew up in Colorado at basically the same time, as both were born in 1990.
Including all three Colorado Open championships — the Colorado Open, CWO and the Colorado Senior Open — only one person has won any one of the events more than Huffer — Dave Hill, who earned the Colorado Open trophy four times. Bill Loeffler and Bill Bisdorf each won the Colorado Open on three occasions.
Huffer, a regular on the Epson Tour who played two seasons at least part time on the LPGA circuit (2019 and ’24), started Friday’s round two out of the lead and tied for second place. But playing her first 12 holes of the final round in 7 under par — seven birdies and no bogeys — gave Huffer a four-stroke advantage.
Four straight birdies in the middle of the round — from 3 feet on No. 9, 10 feet on No. 10, 25 feet on No. 11 and 4 feet on No. 12 — especially helped build the cushion. The “broomstick” long putter that Huffer put in play roughly a month ago was really paying dividends.
But just when she looked like she would cruise to victory, Huffer and her trusty broomstick putter faltered down the stretch as she bogeyed Nos. 15, 16 and 17, missing 4 and 5-foot par putts on the latter two.
“With the new putter there, you don’t know what the nervousness is going to be like with that putter,” she said. “I think I was rushing to hit it and missed a couple of short ones that I hadn’t been missing.”
Clariss Guce, the 2022 champion, shared the lead down the stretch.
And with her friend Guce — playing a group behind her — making birdies on 12 and 14, Huffer and the Californian were tied as the Coloradan stepped up to the tee at the par-5 18th. Three nice shots left her 7 feet from the cup, with an uphill birdie try.
And when she drained that and went ahead by one, she responded with a fist pump, then awaited as Guce played the final hole herself.
“I hit a really nice shot in (to 18), and it was just a left-edge putt — pretty straightforward,” Huffer said. “Coming off hitting some bad putts, though, I was like, ‘OK, let it do its thing.’ I hit it really well and it went straight in.”
Overall, “honestly the putter is really big for me right now,” Huffer added. “I think it’s going to help a lot.”
Guce, the 2022 Colorado Women’s Open champion, had gotten up and down for par saves on 16 and 17. And on 18, she left herself with a birdie try from 20 feet above the hole, and had she converted, it would have forced a playoff. But she missed her putt right and made par, clinching the title for Huffer.
“Losing sucks, but my friend won, so good for her,” said Guce, who earned $24,000 for second place. As for her birdie try on 18, “I totally just misread it. I didn’t even know where I was on the leaderboard. But either way, I wanted to make birdie. I didn’t think it was going to be a straight putt, but it was straight.
“Colorado has always been a really good experience for me and this week is definitely a confidence boost. So I can’t really complain. I’m happy for Becca. I’m glad she won it. If anyone was gonna beat me, I’m glad it’s her. I have nothing but good things to say about her.”
Huffer (left) consoles her friend Guce after Friday’s round.
Ironically, as Huffer pointed out during her trophy acceptance speech, after she had struggled with her driver in round 2, it was Guce who helped straighten her out, and Huffer drove it much better on Friday.
“We’re good friends, so we’ll help each other out on the range a lot during on the tour season,” Huffer said later. “So I was on the range with my brother (Zach, who was caddying for her) and I was like, ‘This is just so bad.’ She was on a few spots down. She said, ‘What’s going on?’ (Huffer said it turns out she was positioning her hands too far forward.) So it was a lot better today.”
When all was said and done, Huffer shot a 5-under-par 67 on Friday, finishing at 10 under for three rounds and one better than Guce, who closed with a 68. The champion racked up eight birdies and three bogeys in the final round.
“I think I was playing really well today and just had a flew little blips, but I was happy to birdie the last hole to clinch it,” Huffer said. “I felt like I very much won this one. So it’s exciting for me because I was playing well and just kind of got it done.”
Former champion Haylee Harford Sanchez tied for third this time.
Harford Sanchez, like Huffer and Guce a past winner of the Colorado Women’s Open, shared third place at 6 under par with Kate Villegas of Arcadia, Calif.
Lavanya Gupta, coach Lindsay Kuhle’s University of Kansas recruit from India who held a two-shot lead going into the final round, placed solo fifth at 5 under after a 74 on Friday.
Huffer won the Colorado Women’s Open for the third time, and for the second time with younger brother Zach as her caddie.
For Huffer, it was her second time winning with her younger brother Zach caddying for her as he also looped in 2019 at GVR. And she had other family support in the gallery throughout the tournament.
Best Finish By Amateur in 8 Years: Lavanya Gupta could have made a little history Friday at the Colorado Women’s Open. Instead, she had to settle for lapping the field in the low-amateur competition.
Gupta, who led the overall tournament by two strokes going into the final round, had the opportunity to become just the second amateur to claim the overall championship at the CWO, and also to become one of the youngest winners of the title.
But veteran pro Becca Huffer overtook Gupta on the front nine — and went on to claim her third CWO victory.
Lavanya Gupta won the low-amateur competition by 10 strokes.
Still, Gupta had a very impressive finish — fifth place — despite not yet having started college. And she won the low-am competition by a whopping 10 strokes as home-course favorite Emma Bryant, a former University of Denver golfer, placed second among the amateurs, at 5 over par.
“I started off with a birdie (on Friday), and I wouldn’t say I was feeling jittery on the course,” Gupta said. “The other (top players on the leaderboard) played really well, shooting 4 or 5 under. I didn’t have a good day out there, but it’s part of the game.”
Gupta’s fifth-place finish overall is the best showing by an amateur in the CWO since Katrina Prendergast was runner-up in 2018.
“That feels good,” she said. “There’s a lot to learn from this event, especially playing with the professionals.”
Gupta stood tall overall this week.
Gupta joins her future KU coach Lindsay Kuhle as Colorado Women’s Open low-amateurs as Kuhle earned her honors in 2004.
Notable: The field for the championship portion of the 2026 Colorado Women’s Open numbered just 78 players. That’s down considerably from the norm of recent years, when 114 championship players usually tee it up. … Clubhouse Work & Golf, a team consisting of pro Alyaa Abdulghany and amateur Joseph Skovgaard, won the pro-am competition for the second straight year, this time finishing 23 under par for three rounds. … A total of four former champions finished in the top seven overall this week, with Huffer winning, Guce second, Harford Sanchez third and Abdulghany seventh despite a triple bogey and three doubles this week. … The top finishes in the field by players with strong Colorado ties, other than Huffer, were 14th-place ties for Lauren (Lehigh) Dickey and former University of Colorado golfer Kristin Coleman. … With Huffer ending up at 10 under par, six of the last seven champions of the Colorado Women’s Open have ended up in double digits under par for the week.
For all the scores from the CWO, CLICK HERE.
Dottie Ardina celebrates sinking a 60-foot birdie putt on the 10th hole Friday.
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