Mark Henderson makes resurrected Mid-Amateur Match Play his first CGA championship title; former pro from Highlands Ranch defeats Ryan Axlund 2 and 1 in finals of season-long event
By Gary Baines – 9/25/2024
BERTHOUD — A newly reinstated CGA championship that started in the spring culminated in fine fashion on Wednesday afternoon at picturesque TPC Colorado.
In a CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play final that was tied for much of the afternoon and went back and forth, Mark Henderson of the University of Denver Golf Club at Highlands Ranch defeated Ryan Axlund of The Club at Inverness 2 and 1 to earn his first CGA championship title.
In fact, since the trophy is brand new for the Mid-Amateur Match Play after the event was resurrected following its former iteration from 2012 through ’15, Henderson will have the distinction of having his name being the first engraved on the space reserved for noting the champions.
“This ranks up there for me. It’s great,” said the former playing professional and current partner and CEO of Centennial State Capital, a real estate investment business. “The players in Colorado are unbelievable. The two guys I played today (AJ Morris of Aspen Golf Club in the semifinals and Axlund in the final) played great and they were a lot of fun to play with — and they’re good guys as well. So this is a highlight.”
Henderson encountered some of the deep stuff at TPC Colorado on the ninth hole Wednesday.
Henderson, 48, played college golf at the University of Illinois, and during a 3-4-year stint as a pro he qualified for the 2000 Bell Canadian Open on the PGA Tour. But once he got into investment banking in New York City, the 80-hour weeks precluded him from playing much tournament golf, though he had gotten his amateur status back. But when he moved to Colorado four years ago, his current business gave him the flexibility to return to competitive golf. And last year he qualified for and made the cut in the Inspirato Colorado Open. And this year he posted a top-20 finish at the CGA Amateur.
Then there was the CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play, where he came out on top out of a 32-man field by winning five matches from late spring to early fall. TPC Colorado hosted the semifinals and finals on Wednesday, but before that Henderson’s victories in the event included one in the quarterfinals against two-time CGA Player of the Year Pat Grady. And on Wednesday, he defeated Morris, another fellow former pro, and Axlund, the winner of the 2019 CGA Mid-Amateur who was coming off an appearance at the U.S. Mid-Amateur.
“Playing in college or professional golf, it’s kind of like your livelihood,” Henderson noted. “You’re out there and there’s a lot of stress and pressure. There’s not stress and pressure at this level, and if there is, it’s self-imposed. This is a lot of fun and a big highlight for me.
“This is actually one of the goals I set at the start of the year — to win one of the CGA events. So it’s nice to win this one.”
Henderson was solid with his putter throughout the title match.
Despite making a mess of the short par-4 third hole — where he hit two balls into the penalty area and subsequently trailed 1 down — Henderson held a 2-up lead through six holes, having won No. 4 with a bogey and 5 and 6 with birdies. But Axlund bounced back with wins on Nos. 8 and 9 — both with pars — to tie the match.
“I don’t want to make it sound like I played poorly — I played really well — but I was a little sloppy on some holes and really good on other holes on the front nine,” Henderson said. “So that was a little more up and down than what I normally do. The back nine was a little more my game — steady.”
Indeed, after three birdies, three bogeys and being out of the third hole on the front side, Henderson made nothing but pars on his final eight holes. He took the lead for good on the 773-yard 13th hole — yes, they played it at that distance — by getting up and down for par while Axlund three-putted for bogey from the collar.
“I had a brain fart” there, Axlund said. “I read the putt and thought, ‘This one is downhill.’ Then I get over the putt and for whatever reason I hit it like it was uphill. Then the next hole (14) I left one about 10 feet short. I was real happy to make that one that I left short, but my speed was pretty off most of the day. And I started paying for it when it really mattered. … The putter is probably what cost me more than anything.”
Ryan Axlund held the lead only briefly during the finals, but was always in the hunt until losing the 17th hole.
The par on 14 kept Axlund 1 down and he made a nice up-and-down for another par for a tie on the par-3 16th. But Henderson closed things out on the tough par-4 17th, two-putting for par from 12 feet while Axlund made bogey after being in a fairway bunker and leaving his approach shot short of the green and pitching to 10 feet. When the 43-year-old Englewood resident missed that par attempt, the victory was Henderson’s. He’d prevailed at a TPC Colorado course set up at a whopping 7,790 yards.
“I think I just started running out of steam,” Axlund said. “It’s been a long couple of weeks (following the U.S. Mid-Amateur in Virginia and a 36-hole day on Wednesday). But it was great being here. The golf course setup was amazing. (Today) was actually my first time seeing the golf course (at TPC Colorado). I was very impressed. I look forward to being back up here again.”
As for Henderson, he’s slowly getting back in the tournament-golf groove.
“It had been a while since I’d played competitive golf” prior to the last few years. “But the more reps you do certainly helps, so the fact that I’m playing more this summer has definitely helped. It’s getting the juices flowing a little bit, having a game plan and executing.”
The putter didn’t always cooperate with Axlund on Wednesday.
Down the stretch on Wednesday, Henderson didn’t give Axlund many openings.
“I ran into a guy this afternoon who wasn’t making many mistakes,” Axlund said. “And when he did make a mistake, I tended to follow up his mistake with one of my own. That’s golf. But it was a great day. All things considered, you can’t ask for better weather and the golf course was in fantastic shape. It was everything we could ask for for a final of a match-play event.”
This year marked the first CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play since 2015. During the championship’s original run, such local mid-am luminaries as Jon Lindstrom (once) and Michael Harrington (twice) were among the winners. But this time around, the event had a different look for the 25-and-older field, being a season-long affair before culminating at the course that annually hosts The Ascendant presented by Blue on the Korn Ferry Tour. Prior to Wednesday, the rounds of 32, 16 and 8 were played at venues of the choosing of the participating players.
Henderson extricates himself from a bunker on the front nine.
“I like the way they’re doing it this time where you can kind of play when it fits your schedule, then come together for a couple of great rounds on a really great track for the finals,” Axlund said. “It all makes way more sense. The golf association has to just get three tee times (from a course, for the semifinals and the final) instead of an entire weekend.”
The CGA Mid-Amateur, a stroke-play event that has been held continuously since 1987, this year is scheduled for Oct. 4-6 at The Fox Hill Club in Longmont.
CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play
SEMIFINALS WEDNESDAY AT TPC COLORADO IN BERTHOUD
Mark Henderson, DU Golf Club at Highlands Ranch, def. AJ Morris, Aspen GC, 2 and 1
Ryan Axlund, The Club at Inverness, def. Jordan Burgess, Metro Denver e-Club, 4 and 3
FINALS WEDNESDAY AT TPC COLORADO IN BERTHOUD
Mark Henderson, DU Golf Club at Highlands Ranch, def. Ryan Axlund, The Club at Inverness, 2 and 1
For all the results from the CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play, CLICK HERE.
The competitors in the semifinals and finals on Wednesday did indeed play the par-5 13th hole at TPC Colorado from 773 yards.
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