Thanks in part to 154-yard hole-out for eagle in final round, Coloradan Davis Bryant places 12th in Crown Australian Open, 1 shot better than Rory McIlroy; former Coloradan Drew Stoltz finishes 3rd in Grass League Championship
By Gary Baines – 12/6/2025
Davis Bryant has reason to be over the moon after being Down Under for the first two weeks of the 2025-26 DP World Tour season.
The Aurora resident and former Colorado State University golfer capped a two-week run in Australia by tying for 12th place against a formidable field and in front of very large crowds at the Crown Australian Open at Royal Melbourne. A week before, he’d posted another top-15 finish — tying for 14th place — at the BMW Australian PGA Championship.
But it was also the way Bryant did what he did at Royal Melbourne. First, his final round of 2-under 69 included a 154-yard hole-out for eagle with a gap wedge on the 440-yard fourth hole on Sunday (Saturday night Mountain time).
On top of that, the former CGA Player of the Year finished a stroke ahead of the player most in the spotlight in Melbourne, career Grand Slam winner Rory McIlroy.
Also in the field were a few other major champions — Aussies Cam Smith, Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy — as well as Joaquin Niemann, Min Woo Lee, Si Woo Kim, Marc Leishman and Carlos Ortiz. (Of those, Bryant ended up ahead of Ogilvy, Niemann, Lee and Leishman.)
Given that, it’s not surprising that Bryant noted by text that the tournament featured “incredible crowds.”
Playing on one of the world’s top courses, Bryant went 71-67-69-69 for an 8-under-par total. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen won at 15 under. The showing was worth about $22,000 (USD) to Bryant.
All of which gives Bryant a very strong start to the DP World Tour season a year after he didn’t play in Australia to start the 2024-25 season.
Next up for the 25-year-old is the Mauritius Open Dec. 18-21 on the island nation east of Madagascar.
For all the scores from the Crown Australian Open, CLICK HERE.
Drew Stoltz on Saturday in Tempe, Ariz.
— Also wrapping up on Saturday (MT) was the nationally televised Grass League Championship, a two-day, 36-hole two-person scramble held on a par-3 course under the lights in Tempe, Ariz.
Drew Stoltz, a golfer who grew up in Fort Collins and won a state high school title and the 2004 CGA Amateur, teamed with Drew Kittleson to tie for third place on Saturday. The two shared seventh place in the Grass League Championship a year ago.
Stoltz and Kittleson, twice runners-up in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, ended up 19 under par in the scramble format over the two rounds combined, earning $9,000 in the process. Winning the event were siblings Ryan and Gabriela Ruffels.
For all the results from the Grass League 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