Putting the final touches on the countdown of the top 25 Colorado golf stories of 2025
By Gary Baines – 12/29/2025
With 2026 right around the corner, there’s no time to waste.
After counting down Nos. 25 through 13 on our list of top Colorado golf stories of the year last week (CLICK HERE),it’s time for the top dozen. And, as was the case with last week’s listing, we’ll go through the final 12 in a countdown, to preserve some suspense. Then, after divulging No. 1, we’ll add some honorable-mention selections — stories that didn’t make the top 25 but were close.
And off we go …
12. World Long Drive held not one, not two, but three of its competitions at Bigfoot Turf Farm in LaSalle, southeast of Greeley, in 2025. That’s saying something considering only eight WLD events were conducted for the entire year. The three in LaSalle included the World Championships — the grandaddy of long drive events — in late September, a competition that was televised by the Golf Channel — albeit not until this month. In the relatively thin air of Colorado — and with a helping wind — the long drives in the World Championships traveled a whopping 486 yards for the men, and 413 for the women, with Zack Holton and 50-year-old Kelly Rudney winning the respective titles. (READ MORE). Monica Lieving of Lakewood finished runner-up in the women’s competition, but was later named the Women’s Player of the Year by WLD, while fellow Coloradan Chase Noell was the Amateur of the Year. Both won an earlier WLD event at Bigfoot Turf Farm. (READ MORE) Kyle Berkshire, one of the best-known long drivers, also captured a title in LaSalle in 2025. (READ MORE)
CGA executive director Ed Mate working with the caddies from the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy.
11. In 2025, Ed Mate celebrated a quarter-century as executive director of the CGA, reaching a milestone no previous E.D. at the association has surpassed. And it’s been an accomplished, eventful run at the helm for Mate, who has served alongside 14 CGA presidents over the years. (READ MORE)
10. Two years after finishing runner-up at the U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club — where he proved to be a fan favorite — Neal Shipley rallied from seven strokes behind in the final round to win The Ascendant presented by Blue at TPC Colorado and locked up a 2026 PGA Tour card. (READ MORE)
Rodeo Dunes in Roggen has a unique look to it.
9. Within a week of one another in late September and early October, two new golf courses in Colorado took steps toward opening. A Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw course at Rodeo Dunes in Roggen hosted rounds for selected people in anticipation of a 2026 “preview season” that will be limited to founders, their guests, some media/industry folks and the like. Then general public play will start in 2027. That is the first of what could become six 18-hole courses at Rodeo Dunes, which looks to become a Centennial State-based mecca for prairie links golf aficionados. (READ MORE) Then on Oct. 6, Bella Ridge Golf Club in Johnstown, a daily-fee public facility, opened for “limited preview play”. Bella Ridge became the first regulation golf course to open in Colorado since RainDance National in Windsor in 2022. (READ MORE)
8. It’s arguably the most impressive run by a Colorado-based college golf program in history. A year ago at the NCAA Division II tournament, Colorado Christian University men’s team became the first college golf squad from the Centennial State to win a national team championship. And the momentum carried forward in a big way to the 2024-25 season as the Cougars went into the 2025 national title match with a 151-0 record against Division II opponents in the ’24-25 campaign. Alas, this time CCU lost in a sudden-death team playoff to West Florida, which denied the Cougars back-to-back national titles as they finished runner-up. (READ MORE) In the wake of the performance, CCU’s Mark Hull was named the DII national men’s golf coach of the year, Adam Duncan the DII national golfer of the year and Sungyeop Cho the International Golfer of the Year. (READ MORE) Duncan also competed for the U.S. in the Arnold Palmer Cup team matches. Hull ended up retiring — after 21 years at CCU — after the season.
7. Davis Bryant of Aurora had another memorable season — the year after winning the 2024 Inspirato Colorado Open and qualifying for the DP World Tour. Bryant posted two top-10 finishes on the top European-based circuit, but fell just short of keeping full status on that tour. But for the second straight fall, Bryant finished in the top-10 at the final stage of Q-school and was the top American on the leaderboard. That gives him a second season on the DP World Tour. (READ MORE) And he started the 2025-26 season with two straight top-15 finishes — including beating Rory McIlroy by a stroke at the recent Crown Australian Open after holing out for eagle from 154 yards in the final round — giving him a bit of a leg up as things head into the new year. (READ MORE) Also in 2025, Bryant made his PGA Tour debut, at the ISCO Championship.
Judy Bell of Colorado Springs, who passed away in the fall, was the first female president of the USGA.
6. Death is certainly inevitable for us humans, but sometimes it seems to hit particularly hard. That’s certainly been the case for prominent figures in Colorado golf in 2025. Four of the six people who were included in the CGA’s Golf People of the Century a decade ago passed away this year, including World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Bell (READ MORE), national PGA of America Golf Professional Hall of Famer Vic Kline (READ MORE), Colorado Sports Hall of Famer and two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champ Barbara McIntire (READ MORE) and Colorado Golf Hall of Famer and former president of the national Golf Course Superintendents Association of America Dennis Lyon (READ MORE). Bell, the first female president of the USGA, was the most recent to die. Also among those passing away this year — in early November — was Dennis Murray, a prominent instructor in the state, and Jay Sigel (READ MORE), an honorary member at Cherry Hills Country Club.
5. Two years after reaching the height of his professional career to date by winning the U.S. Open, Colorado native and Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Wyndham Clark hit a low point at the same championship. After missing the cut by one, Clark damaged lockers at historic Oakmont Country Club. This came a month after Clark tossed a club and damaged a sign after an errant tee shot at the PGA Championship. Clark apologized for both incidents — multiple times in the case of the Oakmont damage (READ MORE) — but was suspended from Oakmont until fully repaying for damages, making a meaningful contribution to a charity of the club’s choice, and completing counseling and/or anger management sessions. After his best finish of the year — a fourth place at the British Open — Clark vowed such temper-related incidents are “not going to happen again” (READ MORE)
4. Colorado has hosted 36 USGA championships over the years, dating back to 1938. And during the course of this year, three more were added to the schedule. Just prior to the 2025 U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor, the USGA announced that the 2031 and ’37 USSO championships also will be held at the Colorado Springs resort. That will bring the number of Senior Opens held in Colorado to six, and the number contested at The Broadmoor to five. In 2031, The Broadmoor will become the first site to host the USSO four times. (READ MORE) Then in October, the USGA announced it will bring the 2030 U.S. Junior Amateur to Colorado Golf Club in Parker, which previously has hosted the Senior PGA Championship (2010), the Solheim Cup (2013) and the U.S. Mid-Amateur (2019). It will be the fourth U.S. Junior Am held in Colorado, but the first since 1987. (READ MORE)
Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Jennifer Kupcho claimed her fourth career LPGA Tour victory this year.
3. After a three-victory season on the LPGA Tour in 2022, Colorado native Jennifer Kupcho went winless the following two calendar years. But after being inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame last December, Kupcho added career LPGA victory No. 4 in early June at the ShopRite LPGA Classic. (READ MORE) The win came almost 35 months after the Jefferson Academy graduate’s previous victory on the LPGA Tour. Ironically, Kupcho’s first three victories — including a major — all came in the course of 15 weeks. The 2025 win was worth $262,500 for Kupcho. She landed a far bigger payday in November, when she collected more than $1.3 million — $1 million for winning the season-long Aon Risk-Reward Challenge and $303,994 for finishing second in The Annika driven by Gainbridge. (READ MORE)
A year after placing second in a playoff, Colorado native Jim Knous claimed the title in the Inspirato Colorado Open.
2. You wouldn’t know it by the last couple of years, but it’s been relatively rare for golfers who grew up in Colorado to win the Colorado Open in recent times. For instance, from 2014 through ’23, just one player who falls into that category (part-time Boulder resident Jonathan Kaye) had claimed the title. But when Jim Knous, who grew up in Basalt, won this year, it marked two straight victories for Colorado natives in the Open, with Aurora’s Davis Bryant having prevailed in 2024. Knous, a former PGA Tour player, is on quite a run at the Colorado Open, having lost in a playoff to Bryant last year. This year’s tournament also went to sudden death, and Knous ended things in spectacular fashion — by holing out for eagle from 69 yards to defeat former champion Sam Saunders from Albuquerque, who has lost in a playoff twice at the Colorado Open. In regulation, Knous went 64-62 on the weekend, with the 62 being the lowest final round by a Colorado Open champion in history — by two strokes, Knous called the victory the biggest of his career. (READ MORE)
1. Big-time spectator events in golf — the type that draw close to 100,000 people, or more, over the course of a week — haven’t come along often in Colorado in the last 19 years. Since the PGA Tour’s International ended its run in 2006, there have been just eight in the Centennial State. No. 8 came this past summer as the U.S. Senior Open was contested at The Broadmoor for the third time in 17 years. The other golf competitions that have drawn a big-time number of fans since 2006 have been two BMW Championships, a U.S. Women’s Open, a Solheim Cup and a Senior PGA Championship. And this year’s Senior Open produced a very notable champion, World Golf Hall of Famer Padraig Harrington, who won the event for the second time. In the nine USGA championships held at The Broadmoor, four winners are in the World Golf Hall of Fame as Harrington joined Jack Nicklaus (1959 U.S. Amateur), Annika Sorenstam (1995 U.S. Women’s Open) and Juli Inkster (1982 U.S. Women’s Amateur). By just about all accounts — course quality and set-up, player reviews, hospitality, large crowds, tournament competitiveness — the 2025 U.S. Senior Open was a hit at The Broadmoor.
“For the state of Colorado, it’s a plus-plus,” said Hale Irwin, this U.S. Senior Open’s honorary chairman, and a World Golf Hall of Famer in his own right. “For The Broadmoor it was over the top. All the players were really impressed by the hospitality. They were impressed, I think, by the golf course. I for one, being a Coloradan, thought the players put on a great performance on a difficult golf course. And a very deserving champion emerged. That’s what you want to see — a fight to the finish — and we saw it.” (READ MORE)
***********
Honorable Mention Selections (In No Particular Order)
— With a victory at the CGA Women’s Senior Stroke Play, Kris Franklin ran her CGA senior major win streak to four for the second time in her career. Franklin went on to capture the CGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year honors for the sixth time. (READ MORE)
— Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kyle Heyen retired on Oct. 31 after a nearly 45-year run at Hiwan Golf Club, much of it as the PGA head professional. Heyen remains the president of the Colorado PGA.
— Floridian Blake Dyer shot a 59 at University of Denver Golf Club at Highlands Ranch to gain medalist honors in the first Inspirato Colorado Open qualifier. (READ MORE)
— For the fourth time in 10 months, Colorado native Chris Korte Monday qualified for a PGA Tour event, this time teeing it up at the Barracuda Championship. (READ MORE)
— Two members of the Team Colorado junior elite squad — Aurora’s Brayden Forte and Castle Rock’s Isabella Scott — won CGA State Junior titles. (READ MORE)
Annika Sorenstam shared a laugh with former Broncos standout Terrell Davis during a kids clinic at Foothills Golf Course.
— Giving back to golf — on many different levels — is very gratifying to Annika Sorenstam these days; World Golf Hall of Famer and former Broncos great Terrell Davis headlined a kids clinic at Foothills GC. (READ MORE)
— A week before they teamed up at the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic, twins and former CU golfers Jeremy and Yannik Paul posted top-3 finishes on separate tours. (READ MORE)
— The team from Colorado/the CGA posted its second-best finish ever at the boys Junior America’s Cup as Ash Edwards and Brayden Forte placed in the top 5 individually. (READ MORE)
— A Colorado course cracked the top 35 of “America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses” for the first time since 2013; 3 from the Centennial state made the list overall. (READ MORE)
— Part-time Colorado resident Scott Vincent finished atop the International Series rankings to regain his spot in LIV Golf; Mark Hubbard kept his fully-exempt status on the PGA Tour, but ex-Buff Jeremy Paul fell short in his rookie season on that circuit. (READ MORE)
— The Colorado Golf Expo is moving for the second time in recent years; 2026 show set for March 6-8 at National Western Center’s new Livestock Center. (READ STORY)
— Denver’s Joe Buchholz captured the National Lefthanded Golf Championship, edging a 3-time champ. (READ MORE)
— Coloradan Matt Schalk qualified for another senior major with a top-15 finish at the national Senior PGA Professional Championship. (READ MORE)
— Coloradans Mitch Savage and Josh Troyer were included in Global Golf Post’s inaugural class of up-and-comers in the American golf industry. (READ MORE)
— With a third-place finish at an NCAA Regional, the CU men punched their tickets to the NCAA Div. I golf nationals for the second time in the last three years after a previous long drought. (READ MORE) CU would end the season with a top-25 showing at the NCAA nationals for the second time in three years. (READ MORE)
Miles Kuhl of Boulder has been the man the last two years at the AJGA Wyndham Clark Presented by the CGA.
— Miles Kuhl of Boulder became the first back-to-back champ at the AJGA Wyndham Clark Presented by the CGA. (READ MORE)
— Then-CU golfer and 2023 CGA Women’s Player of the Year Morgan Miller won the prestigious Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur title for the second time. (READ MORE)
— Colorado was among the states with the highest percentage growth of golf rounds played in 2024. (READ MORE)
— Two freshmen (Sophia Lee and Landry Frost) and two sophomores (Ella Scott and CheyAnne Schrick) claimed individual titles in the girls state high school golf tournaments. (READ MORE)
— Brandon Bingaman, a former longtime resident of Montrose/Grand Junction, qualified for the PGA Championship for the second time; he placed fifth out of 312 players at the PGA Professional tourney. (READ MORE)
— The CU women ended an 8-year drought as they claimed the team title at the rain-shortened Ptarmigan Ram Classic in Fort Collins; Coloradan Brenna Higgins posted a top-10 individual showing in her 2nd college tourney. (READ MORE)
— Miles Kuhl claimed the 5A state high school individual title as Fairview golfers went 1-2; seniors sweep as Hunter Simmons (4A), Nicholas Brooks (3A) and Noah Pearson (2A) also won. (READ MORE)
— Former touring pro AJ Morris of Aspen claimed the men’s open division title at the PGA National Club Championship. (READ MORE)
— Alyaa Abdulghany, all 5 feet of her, stood tall as a bogey-free round and playoff par saves gave her the Colorado Women’s Open title; 2-time champion Becca Huffer placed third. (READ MORE)
— Former Littleton resident Ashley Kozlowski saw her magical U.S. Women’s Amateur run end in the round of 32. (READ MORE)
— Part-time Coloradan Liselotte Neumann posted another top-10 in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, placing 3rd. (READ MORE)
— Ash Edwards of Boulder went 8 under par on the first 7 holes of the back 9 en route to a 64 and a 7-stroke win in the Colorado Junior PGA. Sophia Lee claimed the girls title. (READ MORE)
— With a victory in Montrose, Englewood’s Henry Starr extended a local win streak for boys in Colorado-based AJGA events. (READ MORE)
Thomas Herholtz emerged with the victory at the 2025 CGA Amateur.
— A year after Colin Prater claimed his third CGA Amateur title, a player he coached in high school, Thomas Herholtz, succeeded him as champion; the Colorado Springs golfer earned a U.S. Amateur berth in the process. (READ MORE)
— Three Coloradans — Sophia Eagan, Shepherd Choi and Peyton Landon — are Augusta-bound after qualifying for 2026 Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals. (READ MORE)
— Jason Schultz shot the lowest final round in tournament history — and broke his own overall scoring record — en route to his second Colorado Senior Open title; Littleton’s Brian Guetz earned low-am honors, collecting his fifth Colorado Open championship trophy. (READ MORE)
— DU women golfers made it 20 team titles in the last 21 league tourneys; CCU men reached 50 under par for 3 rounds in winning the RMAC again; CSU Pueblo women completed an RMAC 3-peat. (READ MORE)
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