NCAA Division II men’s national golf champs from Colorado Christian earn 2024 King of the Hill honor from Colorado Sports Hall of Fame
By Gary Baines – 1/16/2025
The Colorado Christian University men’s golf team is on quite a roll, and apparently that isn’t limited to on the golf course, per se.
Last year, the Cougars became the first Colorado-based college program — men or women, regardless of division level — to win an NCAA golf national team title as they claimed the NCAA Division II crown. It was also the first national championship for any CCU sports program.
CCU has now won the last six tournaments in which it’s competed — including its first five of this season — andnine of its last 11 tournaments overall, dating back to April 1 of last season. Considering anywhere from seven to 20 schools have made up the field in those tournaments, it’s been an amazing run.
That’s where the off-the-course success comes in. The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame this week announced its annual award winners for 2024, and the Colorado Christian men’s golf team was named the 2024 King of the Hill.
Looking at previous winners of this honor, it’s no small thing. The Denver Nuggets (2023) and Colorado Avalanche (2001 and ’22) were the Kings of the Hill following championship seasons. Included among the other KOHs over the last 52 years are the Denver Broncos, Terrell Davis, Joe Sakic and the Colorado Rockies and manager Clint Hurdle (when they made it to the 2007 World Series). The only other NCAA Division II program to have received the honor was the 2014 CSU-Pueblo football team, which won the DII national title that year. (Note: the King of the Year award is not presented every year.)
That’s heady company indeed.
The Colorado Christian men were ranked No. 1 in the nation — among Division II teams — throughout the fall portion of the 2024-25 season, according to the National Collegiate Golf Rankings. The Cougars will begin the “spring” schedule Feb. 24-26 — with the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in Palm Desert, Calif., which will feature Division I teams such as the University of Colorado and the University of Wyoming.
In addition to the team titles, CCU players Adam Duncan (2), Sungyeop Cho (2 wins or co-victories), Xavier Bighaus (1) and Sangha Park (1) have claimed individual tournament titles so far this season.
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