Getting On A Roll

Inaugural Colorado Putting Championship, benefitting the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, starting to take shape. Organizers hope 2027 will mark the first of many years for the unique statewide event

By Gary Baines

Last September, Colorado hosted the Long Drive World Championships, where the top competitors hit golf balls almost 500 yards.

Next year, barring the unforeseen, Colorado will go to the other end of the golf spectrum with a new championship focused solely on putting. And, unlike the World Long Drive Championships, the plan is for the putting event to be an annual happening in the Centennial State.

The newly-created Colorado Putting Championship, presented by the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, will make its debut in 2027, with the championship finals of a three-stage competition planned for The Broadmoor, the home of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame and its new museum.

The Colorado Putting Championship is the brainchild of Colorado Golf Hall of Fame vice president Mark Passey, a retired longtime USGA regional affairs director who spearheaded the creation of the Hall of Fame museum at The Broadmoor, where it opened in 2023.

“It’s going to happen,” Passey said in a recent phone interview regarding the Colorado Putting Championship.

“Nobody else is doing this (similarly to how the CPC will operate, though there is a state putting championship for amateur adults run by the Wisconsin State Golf Association). And there is a copycat mentality; if something works, somebody else will do it. So I think there’s a chance for us here to really start up a national trend — and even have it help support the game of golf everywhere we go. It’s dreaming big. Who knows how successful it’s going to be? But we’re going to give it our best shot.”

Passey is part of a four-person committee that’s been ironing out the details of the CPC. Chairing that committee is The Broadmoor’s longtime PGA director of golf Russ Miller, himself a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer. He and Passey are joined on the committee by CGHOF president Chris Nordling, a former CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year, and Jon Rizzi, executive director of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

Proceeds from the CPC will benefit the Golf History of Colorado Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that funds the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame and its museum.

After being in the planning process during the first half of this year, the Colorado Putting Championship formally got things rolling — pun intended — this month by sending out communication to leaders at roughly 230 golf courses and clubs throughout the state, asking them to voluntarily host single-day local qualifying events next June, on a date they determine.

“Our first step is to hopefully have individuals in Colorado see this and say, ‘Is my course participating?’” Passey said.

The champion and two runners-up from each of those local qualifiers will advance to one of 16 one-day regional championships around the state, set for next July at designated sites. The top finisher at each of the regionals will qualify to the championship finals at The Broadmoor, tentatively set for Aug. 27-28, 2027.

At the championship finals, on the first day an 18-hole stroke-play contest will be held on the putting green near the 18th green at The Broadmoor’s East Course to determine seeding for day 2. The second day will feature a match-play bracket (16 vs. 1, 15 vs. 2, etc.), with the competition taking place at The Broadmoor’s new putting green near the driving range. The winner of four rounds of matches (round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals) in that match-play competition will be the inaugural Colorado Putting Champion.

All of the championship finalists will be complimentary guests of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame at The Broadmoor on the Friday night of that weekend. Specific prizes for the top performers at the event haven’t yet been finalized.

Golfers will compete against one another regardless of age, gender, overall golf ability, pro or amateur, etc. So there will be a single state putting champ.

“This is open to everybody — men, women, girls, boys, juniors, seniors, amateurs, professionals,” Passey said. “There’s no strength advantage to it; anybody can do it. I think, in a way, there’s almost an advantage for youth. Kids don’t have the scar tissue” from having missed so many putts that older golfers do.

“You don’t have to have much experience; all you have to do is try. Putting is such a great equalizer.”

The entry fee will be a donation to the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame — $100 for adults, and $30 for juniors (age 17 and younger).

“There’s so much work that’s gone into this already and it is not dependent on all the golf courses to say they’ll participate — though we hope they do,” Passey said. “And, you know, it’s voluntary (regarding individual courses/clubs hosting local qualifying). But regardless of the first year’s level of response, it’s going to happen next year and grow from there. We’re confident even with the start-up expenses and time involved, that this can be a money-raiser for the Hall of Fame and sustain us as an organization for a long period of time.

“I think this has charm. The rural courses that never get a chance to really compete in a statewide event or a big-time tournament, the player at that golf course actually has a chance to compete. I’d love to see in the final a 13-year-old girl competing against a 50-year-old male golf professional and beating him. I think that would be awesome. I think that’s another thing that’s so charming about this championship.”

One of the putting greens at CommonGround Golf Course.





Passey said he’s entertained thoughts about a putting championship for the last four or five years and has run the idea past people in the golf industry on occasion, including fellow former USGA employee Maggie Giesenhagen, who leaves nearby in the south Denver suburbs and with whom Passey often shares car rides to meetings. Another of those people was CGA CEO Ed Mate, a friend with whom Passey worked quite a bit during the latter’s time at the USGA, from which he retired in 2017 after 27 1/2 years.

Asked about the prospects for event, Mate said via email, “I am very excited about the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s launch of the Colorado State Putting Championship. It will be a great way to raise awareness and funding for the Hall of Fame and, at the same time, see who is the best putter in Colorado. The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame belongs to the entire golf community of Colorado, and this will be a wonderful way to bring the Hall to local communities through a fun and engaging format culminating with the championship at The Broadmoor.”

The idea of the Colorado Putting Championship serves two purposes for the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame: it potentially fills a championship void where there’s some interest in the Colorado golf realm; and it helps fund a CGHOF museum that originally cost more than $1.6 million to get up and running, and has ongoing costs for updates, improvements and ongoing operations.

“Being on this museum project here for five-plus years, I’ve been thinking constantly about, ‘how can we fund this and get this paid for?’” Passey said. “And at the same time, this is not just about what’s good for the museum. I also think that this creates a unique championship. We’re going to play by the Rules of Golf. You’ve got to hole your putts in the first two rounds. And when it gets to match play, it’s up to your opponent (if a putt is good). We’re going to have officials at the regional and final level. You’ve got to play your stroke in 30 seconds or less. This is not just a ‘hit and giggle.’ It’s a real competition, and we’ll really find out who the best putter is — and do that every year.

“It just seems to click in my head that we could make this work. We kind of adopt a USGA model of local and regional qualifying, then the final, and make it special for the players. And you think about it from an expense point of view, we don’t have to pay green fees. We’re using practice putting greens (for the competitions), so it should be low-expense at the same time as being a significant event.”

It should be noted that, particularly at the local qualifying level, organizers will be given quite a bit of latitude in how they set up the contest at their local course.

Asked what participation rate for the first year would be considered a success, Passey said he thinks 1,000 entrants is a very real possibility. But, “If we got 500 entries, that’s awesome. But I think we’re going to do better than that.”

Of course, there are still organizational hurdles to overcome. But Colorado Golf Hall of Fame officials are solving some of that by reaching out for some help.

“There’s a tremendous amount of detail that goes into how to register players, how to communicate all this to all these golf courses, how to keep track of lists and all that,” Passey said. “And we’re working with this group — GolfStatus (an event management platform) — and their sole roll is they help non-profits run golf tournaments for their benefit. And they charge you almost nothing. And we’re working with them on every little communication step, details, all this player registration, and club communication that has to happen to make this (event a success).”

So the seed has been planted and this whole idea is beginning to germinate. A logo has been created, there’s a trademark and a domain name. Promotional and marketing plans are starting to take shape.

In other words, the Colorado Putting Championship is getting on a roll.

For more information on the Colorado Putting Championship, 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