Time to gather around and hand out the holiday gift wishes, Colorado golf style
By Gary Baines – 12/23/2025
Ho, ho, ho.
It’s that time of year. Plenty of holidays on the calendar. Lots of celebrating. Breaks from work — hopefully. Season of giving. Family time. Some relaxation — again, hopefully. All that.
Specifically here at ColoradoGolf.org, it’s also the time for our annual feature on holiday gift wishes, Colorado golf-style. And no, this isn’t yet another piece on gift ideas. I’m sure we’ve all had our fill of those. Instead, these wishes involve intangible items — some serious, some not, and plenty aspirational.
So away we go with our particular take on holiday gift wishes for the year ahead:
— To: The Colorado Open Championships. Gift Wish: A title sponsor that will allow you to remain among the top state/regional golf opens in the country — with enough left over to permit the First Tee of Green Valley Ranch, and related programs, to continue to thrive.
— To: Colorado golfers who play with any regularity. Gift Wish: Less hassle getting tee times during the continuing post-Covid surge in the game — and at rates that don’t break the bank.
— To: Colorado PGA president Kyle Heyen. Gift Wish: In the wake of retiring a couple of months ago after nearly 45 years of working at Hiwan Golf Club, a gold watch engraved with a likeness of one of those massive elk in the area.
— To: The CGA. Gift Wish: After reaching nearly 100,000 members recently — with many of them having joined in the last eight years — continuing steady increases for the good of the game in the state.
— To: The caddies at the University of Colorado Evans Scholars house. Gift Wish: Sincere appreciation for the gift (full tuition and housing at CU) you’ve been awarded.
— To: The Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy. Gift Wish: That all high schools will follow your lead in requiring personal finance/financial literacy classes for teenagers. (How this is not already mandatory at schools has always been baffling.)
— To: Colorado Springs amateur Colin Prater. Gift Wish: After capturing the fifth open-age CGA major title of your career this past summer, that you’ll break Larry Bromfield’s century-old record for championship wins in such events (8) by the time you’re 35.
— To: Davis Bryant of Aurora. Gift Wish: That the 2024 Colorado Open champion will earn a spot in the 2026 British Open during his second season on the DP World Tour.
— To: Part-time Denver resident Kevin Stadler. Gift Wish: After being voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame recently, that your dad — fellow CG Hall of Famer Craig Stadler — can join you in celebrating your enshrinement at the induction dinner in 2026.
— To: Longtime Broadmoor director of golf Russ Miller. Gift Wish: Deep satisfaction in playing such a pivotal role in making the 2025 U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor the considerable success it was.
— To: The Blue Championship, the newly-renamed Korn Ferry Tour event held annually at TPC Colorado in Berthoud. Gift Wish: A 2026 champion who grew up in Colorado.
— To: Colorado native Wyndham Clark. Gift Wish: After self-inflicted temper-related incidents gave you many of the wrong sort of headlines in 2025, that you’ll make it a point of living up to your vow that “that stuff is not going to happen again.” And, if that’s the case, then here’s to wishing you well regarding a return to your winning form of 2023/24 on the PGA Tour.
— To: Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Jennifer Kupcho. Gift Wish: That a fourth time representing the U.S. in the Solheim Cup awaits in September 2026 in the Netherlands.
— To: The Colorado Golf Expo. Gift Wish: That the 2026 move to the National Western Center will allow you to gallop to record attendance figures for the show.
— To: Team Colorado, the junior elite squad that’s part of the USGA’s national development program. Gift Wish: That a year from now, when the USGA names its 2027 national junior team, that a Team Colorado standout is on the roster.
— To: World Long Drive. Gift Wish: After holding three competitions — out of an eight-event schedule — at Bigfoot Turf Farm in LaSalle, that the circuit will return to Colorado at least once in 2026.
— To: Colorado-based college golf teams. Gift Wish: After the Colorado Christian University men’s squad posted two straight top-2 team finishes at an NCAA national championship, that another Centennial State-based program will place in the top 5 in 2026.
— To: Lakewood Country Club. Gift Wish: That one of your many standout players claim a title when LCC hosts the Trans Miss Mid-Master and Mid-Amateur Championship next September.
— To: The Mike Lee 9, named after the 2011 CGA Match Play champion who passed away five years ago at age 28 after battling Covid-19. Gift Wish: That the unique beginners’ course which opened at Boomerang Links in Greeley in 2025, do Michael proud by drawing many thousands of young players to the sport next year.
— To: Rodeo Dunes, the new golf complex in Roggen, along I-76. Gift Wish: That in the next few years all fervent golfers in Colorado play a round at the facility as the Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw course is well worth the trip. (Though, we must say, we could live without the smattering of blind shots the course produces.)
— To: Colorado golf course superintendents. Gift Wish: Added appreciation — from those who tee it up — for the work you all do to help make the game as enjoyable as it is.
— To: Colorado PGA professional Matt Schalk. Gift Wish: At the Senior PGA Championship in April — where you’ll be competing in a senior major for the fourth time — that you’ll break through by making the cut.
— To: Sophia Eagan of Castle Rock. Gift Wish: That in 2026 — three years after her older brother, Jacob, came ever so close to becoming the first Coloradan to win a Drive, Chip & Putt overall national title at Augusta National — he lost in a putt-off in 2023 — you’ll claim the national victory in the girls 7-9 competition at age 7.
— To: Colorado native and former Colorado School of Mines golfer Jim Knous. Gift Wish: A third straight year of being involved in a playoff to settle the title at the Colorado Open.
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