Former state high school champ and 2016 U.S. Am qualifier Tristan Rohrbaugh goes low — real low — shooting a 58 from tips at Ironbridge
By Gary Baines – 8/27/2024
Tristan Rohrbaugh estimates he’s played 100 rounds at Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs over his lifetime. That’s not particularly surprising since his dad, Doug, was the PGA head professional there from 2005-17.
But a round Tristan played on Aug. 20 there no doubt will forever stand out from the rest.
That’s when the 28-year-old, who grew up in Carbondale and now is a part-time playing professional, teed it up with three fellow golfers in a casual round that turned out to be unforgettable.
Rohrbaugh not only had one of golf’s Holy Grail moments, but did it one better. The former 3A state high school individual champion shot a 14-under-par 58 at Ironbridge, chalking up three eagles, eight birdies and no bogeys.
And, to make it even more special, he carded an eagle on the 18th hole, hitting a 20-yard flop shot over a bunker that trickled into the cup.
“I kind of threw my club up, and the other guys went crazy,” Rohrbaugh said in a phone interview this week. “They were definitely more excited than I was. It was pretty funny.”
Rohrbaugh, who’s caddying this summer at Roaring Fork Club, was joined for the round by Robert Pettit and Trenton Peterson, who work at Roaring Fork Club, and by Mark Hannah.
Rohrbaugh said the group played Ironbridge as long as possible — regardless of where the back tees were placed. The course’s scorecard lists the gold tee yardage at 7,105 yards for the par-72 layout.
Even though it was a casual round, Rohrbaugh said he putted everything out, mainly doing so at the beginning of the round because the foursome was playing a game called C.O.D. (Carts, Opposites, Drivers), in which partners are switched every six holes.
“I had to putt everything out. It’s the way the game worked,” Rohrbaugh said. “I kind of got lucky at the beginning that for the game I had to putt everything out for like the first five or six holes. Then after six holes, I was like, ‘OK, I probably should putt out anyways’” because he had such a good score going. “Everything went in the hole.”
After making a par on the first hole of the day, Rohrbaugh scored eagles on 2 and 4 — via a 10-yard chip-in and a 10-foot putt, respectively — and was 6 under for the stretch from No. 2 through 5. He hit a bit of a lull — given the pace he had been on — in the middle of the round by going “just” 2 under from No. 6 through 12. Then he torched the last six holes, going birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie, par, eagle.
“I was 6 under through six, and I’ve done that before at Ironbridge, so it wasn’t anything crazy,” he said. “Through nine holes I was 7 under — and I’ve shot 29 several times on the front there. So nothing crazy to start. When I birdied 14, that’s when I kind of knew I had a chance (at shooting 59 or better). I was 10 (under at that point). I needed three birdies in the last four (for a 59). And I finished birdie, birdie, par, eagle.”
And voila — a 58. To put that score into some perspective, the lowest score ever in a PGA Tour event is a 58 by Jim Furyk at the 2016 Travelers Championship. But that was 12 under par, and 13 under is the most under par for a single round on the PGA Tour. But, obviously, there’s a difference shooting in the 50s in competition, versus doing it in a casual round.
Still … to finish up with an eagle to go sub-60 is pretty special.
“It’s like a fun par-5; the second shot is over a canyon,” Rohrbaugh said of the 18th at Ironbridge. “I hit it kind of short right (with his second shot) and I had to flop shot it over a bunker. I flopped it, it kind of landed on the fringe, rolled like 6 feet, and barely trickled in the hole. It was a nice flop shot over a bunker that happened to go in.”
Rohrbaugh said his previous low at Ironbridge was a 63, and he’s carded several rounds of 61 in his life, including a couple in tournament competition. He once even shot a 59 in Malta, an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, but it was at a par-68 course. “I never really counted that as my record because it was par-68,” he said. “So this kind of beat everything.”
But it was quite a feat to lower his personal best at Ironbridge by five strokes — especially when that previous personal best was 63.
Asked how he’d rank the accomplishment among the things he’s done as a golfer, Rohrbaugh said, “It’s hard because it’s like a fun round, but I would rank it pretty high. You could call it my No. 1 achievement. It’s probably one of the better feelings, I guess. I’d put it that way.”
Rohrbaugh certainly has had other highlights in his career — both as an amateur and as a pro. As a Basalt High School senior, he won the 3A state individual title by four strokes in 2013 before playing four years at Boise State. In 2016 at U.S. Amateur qualifying at Columbine Country Club, he earned medalist honors and beat the other two qualifiers — Wyndham Clark and Colin Prater — by three strokes over 36 holes. (Clark is now the fifth-ranked golfer in the world, while Prater is ranked in the top 200 amateurs in the world.) As a pro, Rohrbaugh won the 2023 Montana Open and played for three seasons in Mexico on the Gira de Golf Professional Mexicana.
And just this past weekend — after shooting his 58 — Rohrbaugh tied for fifth place at the Sinclair Rocky Mountain Open at Tiara Rado Golf Course in Grand Junction. He shot 67-63-69 for a 14-under-par total and finished three strokes behind champion Dillon Stewart.
These days, Rohrbaugh spends May through September in Colorado, and in the fall he will try to qualify for the Japan Golf Tour, as his girlfriend is based in Okinawa and Rorhbaugh will winter there.
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