Former DU golfer Gilman fires 59 to win event on Dakotas Tour; Whitney notches top-10 on Korn Ferry circuit; Hubbard makes cut in his first major
By Gary Baines – 8/9/2020
Former University of Denver golfer Chris Gilman won a title on the Dakotas Tour for the second time in the last three weeks on Sunday.
This victory, however, will attract more attention than the previous one.
Shooting a final-round 59 for a win will do that.
Gilman birdied his first seven holes and 13 overall in a bogey-free 13-under 59 (28-31) at the Bluffs South Dakota Open in Vermillion. The next-best score on Sunday at the Bluffs GC was a 66.
Gilman finished at 22-under-par 194 for the 54-hole event, giving him a five-stroke victory and the $10,500 first prize.
Also ending up in the top 10 was Colorado-born-and-bred Steven Kupcho, who tied for sixth at 205 (68-68-69). He earned $2,050.
Elsewhere in tour golf for players with strong Colorado connections:
— Former Air Force Academy golfer and ex-Fort Collins resident Tom Whitney posted his second-best finish ever on the Korn Ferry Tour on Sunday, tying for seventh place in the WinCo Foods Portland Open in North Plains, Ore.
Whitney, who placed fifth in a KF event in 2017, went 68-70-70-69 for a 7-under-par 277 total, which left him four strokes behind champion Lee Hodges.
— In the first major championship of his pro career, Denver native and Colorado Academy graduate Mark Hubbard made the cut in the PGA Championship. He tied for 51st place. Hubbard carded scores of 70-71-70-70 at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco — not far from where he went to college at San Jose State — to finish at 1-over-par 281, 14 strokes behind champion Collin Morikawa.