Friday Report

Former New Mexico State golfer Emma Bunch becomes first 3-time winner of 2026 on Annika Women’s All-Pro Tour by prevailing in playoff at Colorado Championship; 2027 Blue Championship Korn Ferry Tour event will be held a week later than this year

By Gary Baines 

Some tour-related news from this week that should be of interest to golf fans in Colorado:

— Annika Women’s All-Pro Tour’s Colorado Championship: The second edition of the Annika Women’s All-Pro Tour event at Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton was scheduled for 72 holes, but the finish line kept moving on Friday afternoon.

Finally — after 77 holes, including a sudden-death playoff that lasted five holes — it was former New Mexico State University golfer Emma Bunch who claimed the title. After matching birdies, pars, pars and birdies on the first four playoff holes, Bunch prevailed with a par on the par-4 ninth hole as former UCLA golfer Tiffany Le carded a bogey.

For a player with a grand total of $751.67 in official earnings on the Annika WAPT going into the week, Bunch sure looked a lot like a pre-tournament favorite.

The three-time Conference USA Women’s Golfer of the Year had won two Annika WAPT events since mid-June, but earned a grand total of $0 for those two victories because the resident of Denmark had yet to receive a Visa, so she competed in the two WAPT starts in June as an amateur. So even though she won the tournaments in St. Louis and Metamora, Ill., she didn’t receive the $20,000 ($10,000 per event) that went to the low pro.

However, Bunch did get paid for her first WAPT start as a pro — last month in Texaarkana, Ark., where she earned $751.67 for tying for 19th place.

On Friday, however, when Bunch picked up her third WAPT victory in just over two months by prevailing in the Brand Asset Partners Colorado Championship at Todd Creek, the $10,000 first-place paycheck came her way — minus taxes, of course.

Bunch, 24, became the first three-time winner on the Annika WAPT circuit in 2026, breaking a tie with Tillie Claggett, who had also won twice.

Friday’s winning score of 12 under par for four rounds of regulation was exactly the same as it was for last year’s inaugural Colorado Championship at Todd Creek. Bunch (70-69-69-68) and Le (75-66-67-68) tied at that figure, one better than Jensen Castle of Daniel Island, S.C., and Maisie Filler of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Bunch played her final seven holes of regulation in 4 under par on Friday.

Natalie Vo, who started her college career at the University of Colorado before transferring to UCLA, tied for sixth place on Friday, She went 73-72-66-69 for an 8-under-par total, which left her four strokes behind the champion.

The Annika WAPT is a developmental tour that many young female professionals use as steppingstones to the Epson Tour and perhaps eventually the LPGA Tour. To that end, the top two finishers at Todd Creek — Bunch and Le — receive spots into the Epson Tour’s event next week in Garden City, Kan.

Here are the scores for the players with strong Colorado ties who competed in the Colorado Championship:

6. Former CU golfer Natalie Vo 73-72-66-69—280

37. Former Loveland resident Lauren (Lehigh) Dickey 70-74-73-74—291

Missed 36-Hole Cut

Lauren Lee, Parker (amateur) 78-71–149

Colorado Christian University women’s coach/former player Faith Kilgore 73-78–151

Leigha Devine, Windsor 79-73–152

Logan Hale, Erie (amateur) 76-78—154

Angela King, Westminster 79-WD

For all the scores from the Colorado Championship, CLICK HERE.

— The Blue Championship: Dates have been set for the 2027 edition of the Korn Ferry Tour event that’s been held annually at TPC Colorado in Berthoud since 2019.

Championship rounds for next year’s Blue Championship will be July 15-18, tournament officials announced this week. That will be roughly a week later than the tournament was held this year (July 9-12). In fact, the final date of the 2027 event will be the latest — by two days — the tournament at TPC Colorado has ever wrapped up.

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