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With Trans-Miss Mid-Master & Mid-Amateur being played at Lakewood CC, 10 members at the club are entered, including past Trans-Miss event champs Jon Lindstrom and Jay Livsey

By Gary Baines 

Given how the elite golfers from Lakewood Country Club have fared in Trans-Mississippi Golf Association championships in recent years, it’ll be interesting to see how they perform when their historic club actually hosts a Trans-Miss event.

Which will happen early next week.

The Trans-Miss Golf Association, founded 125 years ago, has long held notable national amateur golf championships across the U.S., and this month it brings its Mid-Master and Mid-Amateur event to Lakewood CC, a club which dates back to 1908.

Specifically, the 54-hole tournament is set for Monday through Wednesday (Sept. 14-16). The Mid-Master is limited to competitors 40 and older, while the Mid-Am is for players 25 and older.

Seventy-four golfers overall are scheduled to tee it up, including roughly 35 from Colorado. Of those, 10 call Lakewood Country Club their home course. That includes two relatively recent winner of Trans-Miss championships as Jay Livsey captured the Trans-Miss Mid-Master title in 2021 and Jon Lindstrom the Senior victory in 2023. Lindstrom is a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer who just this week made two holes-in-one in just five holes in a casual round in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Also among those in the field from Lakewood CC is Steve Irwin, the former CGA Player of the Year and 2011 U.S. Open qualifier. He’s the son of World Golf Hall of Famer Hale Irwin.

Other Coloradans set to tee it up at the Trans-Miss event next week are two-time CGA Match Play champion Nick Nosewicz of Valley Country Club, 2019 CGA Mid-Amateur champion Ryan Axlund of Valley CC, two-time CGA Player of the Year Pat Grady of The Ranch CC, 2025 CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play champ Zach Gomez of Indian Tree Golf Club, 2021 U.S. Senior Open qualifier Sean Crowley of Columbine CC and 2019 CGA Match Play winner Josh McLaughlin of Highland Meadows Golf Course.

In all, there are entrants from 18 states plus one Canadian province. They range from Texas to British Columbia and from Washington to Florida.

Besides Lindstrom and Livsey, Colorado champions in Trans-Miss championships in the 21st century include John Elway (yes, that John Elway) and Tom Hart in the Four-Ball at Cherry Hills Country Club in 2009; and Dave Runberg in the Legends Division in 2025. In addition, Coloradan Connor Jones was runner-up in 2022 at Denver Country Club in the overall Trans-Miss Championship. (Elway, Hart, Runberg and Jones are not among those competing next week at Lakewood CC.)

This marks just the third year the Tran-Miss Mid-Master and Mid-Amateur have been held together in a stand-alone championship. All tournament applicants must be a member of a Trans-Miss member club or make an annual contribution ($100) to the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association. Trans-Miss member clubs in Colorado include Lakewood CC, Denver CC and Cherry Hills CC.

Lakewood Country Club has long hosted elite-level amateur championships. That includes the 1965 U.S. Women’s Amateur and 1957 U.S. Girls’ Junior, plus the 1952 Trans-Miss that Charlie Coe won. And, between men and women’s tournaments, more than 40 open-age state amateurs have been conducted at LCC. That includes in 2019 when current DP World Tour player Davis Bryant won the CGA Amateur at the club.

For the entire field for the Trans-Miss event at Lakewood CC, 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