Ashley Kozłowski posts biggest win margin at CGA Women’s Stroke Play since the Kupcho era; the Littleton resident also earns berth in U.S. Women’s Am; Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton rallies for Mid-Am victory — her 30th CGA title
By Gary Baines – 7/19/2024
LOVELAND — Just before she begins her first full-time job following college graduation, Ashley Kozlowski earned CGA championship victory No. 1 on Friday.
The win came roughly a half-hour after Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton, who’s on the verge of turning 65, won her record-extending 30th CGA women’s title.
All in all, there was some nice yin and yang to it all on Friday afternoon at the Olde Course at Loveland.
Kozłowski, a recent Purdue graduate who plays out of the Club at Ravenna, pulled away on Friday to win the 77th CGA Women’s Stroke Play title by eight strokes. It’s the largest margin in the prestigious amateur major since impending Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Jennifer Kupcho won the championship by 13 shots in 2017 after prevailing by 21 in 2015 and by 19 in 2016. Kupcho has now won three times on the LPGA Tour, including a major championship.
Kim Eaton is no stranger to lifting CGA/CWGA championship trophies.
Meanwhile, Eaton, who captured the first of her four CGA Women’s Stroke Play titles in 1978, notched her first victory in the CGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Stroke Play.
Here’s how it all played out on Friday in Loveland:
— CGA Women’s Stroke Play: Kozlowski won the Colorado Junior PGA Championship in 2020 and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that more victories would soon be coming her way. But although she had an impressive NCAA Div. I golf career at Purdue and also had her moments in summer golf the last few years, wins weren’t forthcoming. She posted nine top-10 finishes while playing for the Boilermakers, including two runner-up showings. “I was so close a few times (in college) and it was so frustrating,” she noted.
But on Friday, less than a couple of months before moving to Melbourne, Fla., and starting a job as a systems engineer at Northrop Grumman, Kozlowski broke through in one of the most prestigious women’s amateur tournaments in Colorado.
Kozlowski’s victory margin in the Women’s Stroke Play was the largest since 2017.
The 22-year-old not only won the CGA Women’s Stroke Play, but it wasn’t really a contest as she shot rounds of 70-68-69 for a 9-under-par total and the eight-stroke victory.
“It means a lot,” Kozlowski said. “Multiple tournaments, I’ve been one stroke away. By one shot I’ve missed winning or missed the cut. I was thinking about it: Maybe this is the good karma coming back for all the times I’ve missed by one shot. Now I win by eight. So it means a lot to me knowing all my hard work has paid off — and knowing I can actually play this well. I think this is the lowest (54-hole) tournament score I’ve had ever. So it’s really exciting to see I still have it in me even though I’ve stopped playing college golf now.”
Of course, it’s very nice to have your name etched on the Women’s Stroke Play trophy along with those of Kupcho, Barbara McIntire, Lauren Howe, Carol Flenniken and so many other Colorado Golf Hall of Famers. But on Friday, Kozlowski received a very nice additional — and new — perk as the champion also earned a spot in the U.S. Women’s Amateur, set for Aug. 5-11 at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. It will be her first U.S. Women’s Am.
It was especially nice because in U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifying last month in Broomfield, Kozlowski had fallen just short of earning a spot as she finished a stroke behind the last qualifier and ended up as the first alternate.
“That was motivation to get it done here,” she said.
“For me, the past four years I’ve always tried to qualify (for the U.S. Women’s Am), and a lot of times I’ve fallen just a little short. So being able to go to a huge championship like this at the end of my career — when I know I’ve worked so hard for this over the last seven or eight years — is really exciting. To go play with all the top girls one more time and enjoy it all is going to be really awesome for me. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m glad the USGA added that on to all the state ams because it gives a few more opportunities to get in.”
Kozlowski had reason to smile after draining a 35-foot birdie putt at No. 12 on Friday.
Kozlowski took a five-stroke lead into the final day at the Olde Course, and didn’t give her challengers many opportunities to overtake her. She made five birdies and two bogeys on the final day en route to her 69. For three days, she finished with 14 birdies and five bogeys. Perhaps the highlight of the final round for her was backing up a 35-foot birdie on No. 12 with a 2-putt birdie on the par-5 13th after hitting her second shot 6 feet from the cup.
University of Denver golfer Emma Bryant of Green Valley Ranch Golf Club and Notre Dame-bound Maddy Bante tied for second place on Friday, at 1 under par overall. Bryant went 72-71-72 and Bante 69-74-72. Both are former girls state high school champions.
DU golfer Emma Bryant tied for second on Friday.
Kozlowski “played great and deserved it,” Bryant said. “It’s hard to climb the leaderboard when someone has that kind of lead and is doing exactly what they need to do.
“But I feel good. Overall, I’m really happy with the consistency and giving myself as many opportunities as I did. I didn’t capitalize as much as I wanted to, but I probably had less than five bogeys (actually exactly five over 54 holes) this week.”
Bante, a two-time 3A state high school champion at St. Mary’s Academy, had a strong showing just a month before heading to Notre Dame for her freshman season.
“I’m very happy” with her performance at the Olde Course, Bante said. “It definitely could have gone better, but golf can always go better. I’m very happy with the consistency and how I was able to pull together my shots. I’ll continue to learn and get better.
“I’m very excited (as college golf awaits). It’s going to be a great opportunity and I’m very blessed by all the people who have supported me along the way.”
Maddy Bante, set for her freshman year at Notre Dame, shared a runner-up finish.
Katelyn Lehigh of Harmony Club, a Loveland resident who won two 5A girls state high school titles, shared fourth place on Friday — at 2 over par overall — with former Stanford golfer Brooke Seay.
As for Kozlowski, given that she’s soon headed to Florida, this week was a nice way to go out in her home state.
“I love playing in Colorado,” she said. “It’s probably one of the last times I’ll play (competitively) out here. … It was good to finally put it all together here.”
Given a similar Div. I women’s golf pedigree, many local players would give professional golf a go — at least for a while — immediately after graduating from college. But while Kozlowski considered that option, she decided a different path was best for her.
“Playing for money your entire life seems too stressful to me,” she said. “I like to play for fun.”
And it doesn’t hurt that Kozlowski, who in May received her degree from Purdue in aeronautical and astronomical engineering, has a good job lined up.
And she does plan to continue to compete in golf, albeit as a high-level amateur — in USGA qualifiers and perhaps some other events in Florida.
“I still enjoy it and I still enjoy competing. But I enjoy competing for fun,” she said.
All told, it put things into perspective for how far Kozlowski has come with her golf game when she considered what she had shot at a junior event at the Olde Course a handful of years ago.
“I played one junior event here — in 2019, I think,” she said. “I looked back on the scores the other day. I was like third place and shot 77-79. It was funny coming back and seeing what I shot back then and what I can shoot now.”
Eaton rallied with a 2-under-par 70 on Friday in the Mid-Amateur.
— CGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Stroke Play: This week marked just the fifth time the Women’s Mid-Am — for players 25 and older — has been contested, but it’s one of the few CGA women’s tournaments Eaton hadn’t won. But the soon-to-be-65-year-old rectified that situation when she rallied with a 2-under-par 70 in Friday’s final round.
“I haven’t had an under-par round in a while (in a state tournament),” the former pro said. “It was just nice to do it.”
Eaton went into the final round three out of the lead, but her four-birdie, two-bogey day allowed her to overtake 36-hole co-leaders Kristine Franklin of The Ranch Country Club and Shannon Lubar of Meridian Golf Club.
Eaton finished at 3 over par for three days, two strokes better than Franklin and Lubar, who both closed with 75s.
“It’s nice to be in the winner’s circle again,” said Eaton, who grew up in the Greeley area but now splits her time between Mesa and Show Low, Ariz. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
With 30 CGA titles to her credit — as well as a bunch from Arizona and one from California — it’s a challenge for Eaton to find room for all the trophies and awards. But it’s a nice problem to have.
“I wasn’t really thinking about that” — hitting the 30-win CGA milestone, she said. “It’s nice. What’s more important was I got to win a Mid-Am since it’s relatively new and I haven’t been able to play it. I think last year was my first time playing the (CGA) Mid-Am.”
Eaton had to overcome back issues just to tee it up for the final round round.
“It’s kind of been tight for the last month, but last night and this morning it felt like someone was just like standing in the middle of my back. I was having a hard time taking a breath,” she said.
Kris Franklin couldn’t quite hit her stride and tied for second among the Mid-Ams on Friday.
But with a little help from her friends — some pain patches and getting the right side of her back being popped back into place — things became workable on Friday.
Meanwhile, Franklin, who won her third CGA Women’s Match Play title on July 11, on Friday had some putting issues and faltered with a double bogey on No. 12 — where she pulled her tee shot into the left penalty area. Then Eaton birdied No. 16 from 2 feet while Franklin made bogey there to lead to the final result.
“I just couldn’t get putts to the hole,” said Franklin, who will play in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open Aug. 1-4. “The lines were so good, but I just couldn’t make myself hit it.”
On 12, “it was just a bad drive. But I missed so many putts yesterday and today that that hole … you’re going to have mistakes. I’d love it back, but …”
Shannon Lubar also shared second place among the Mid-Ams.
Overall, Franklin said of falling short, “It’s painful, but you only learn from painful. So it was a good experience.”
Meanwhile, in the flighted competition at the Olde Course, the winners were Alison O’Connor of Collindale (gross, by 16 strokes with rounds of 80-77-76) and Rochelle Tisdale of West Woods (net, by one shot with scores of 72-71-71).
For all the results from the CGA Women’s Stroke Play and the Women’s Mid-Amateur Stroke Play, CLICK HERE.
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