From Arnie to Ben to Phil, Colorado has a rich PGA Tour history; another chapter will be written this summer at the BMW Championship
By Gary Baines – 3/6/2024
For a state that has hosted just one PGA Tour event since 2006, Colorado certainly has quite an impressive history involving the top men’s golf tour in the world.
The historical rundown tells the story — at least in part:
— Thirty-four PGA Tour events have been held in the Centennial State all-time.
— That includes six men’s open-age majors — three U.S. Opens and three PGA Championships.
— Two regular PGA Tour events have been conducted on an ongoing or intermittent basis in the state — the Denver Open (or slight variations of that name, depending on the year) and The International. The former was held six times from 1947-63, at a variety of courses, including Cherry Hills Country Club, Denver Country Club (twice), Wellshire Country Club (twice) and Meadow Hills. The latter was played 21 consecutive years at Castle Pines Golf Club, starting in 1986.
We bring this up because another chapter will be written this summer as the BMW Championship FedExCup Playoff event will be hosted by Castle Pines GC the week of Aug. 19-25. It will mark just the second time the PGA Tour has stopped in Colorado since The International was contested in Colorado for the last time, in 2006.
If that BMW Championship lives up to the standards of past PGA Tour events held in Colorado, fans may be in for quite a memorable show at Castle Pines.
We say this because Colorado-based PGA Tour events certainly have a strong history of producing big-name champions.
Ben Hogan at the Denver Open, where his win in 1948 marked his sixth straight PGA Tour victory.
Of the 34 Tour tournaments that have been held in the Centennial State, more than 40 percent — 14, to be precise — have been won by players currently in the World Golf Hall of Fame: Phil Mickelson (2 victories in Colorado), Davis Love III (2), Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Ralph Guldahl, Hubert Green, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Jose Maria Olazabal and Retief Goosen.
And for the record, four of the 15 winningest players in PGA Tour history have claimed Tour trophies in the Centennial State: Hogan (fourth on the victory list, with 64), Palmer (fifth, 62), Mickelson (eighth, 45) and Singh (14th, 34).
And, likewise, there are plenty of major championship winners who have won PGA Tour events in Colorado: Hogan (9 majors), Palmer (7), Mickelson (6), Els (4), Singh (3), Guldahl (3), Norman (2), Green (2), Lee Janzen (2), Olazabal (2), Goosen (2), Andy North (2), Love (1), Don January (1), Rich Beem (1), David Toms (1), Bob Goalby (1), Vic Ghezzi (1) and Lew Worsham (1).
For the record, that’s 51 victories in majors by players who have claimed PGA Tour titles in Colorado.
Overall, these are the 34 PGA Tour events conducted in Colorado, with the host course and the champion:
1938 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Ralph Guldahl
1941 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Vic Ghezzi
1947 Denver Open at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Lew Worsham
1948 Denver Open at Wellshire CC — Won by Ben Hogan
1958 Denver Centennial Open at Wellshire CC — Won by Tommy Jacobs
1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Arnold Palmer
1961 Denver Open Invitational at Meadow Hills CC — Won by Dave Hill
1962 Denver Open Invitational at Denver CC — Won by Bob Goalby
1963 Denver Open Invitational at Denver CC — Won by Chi Chi Rodriguez
1967 PGA Championship at Columbine CC — Won by Don January
1978 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Andy North
1985 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Hubert Green
1986 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Ken Green
1987 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by John Cook
1988 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Joey Singular
1989 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Greg Norman
1990 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Davis Love III
1991 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Jose Maria Olazabal
1992 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Brad Faxon
1993 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Phil Mickelson
1994 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Steve Lowery
1995 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Lee Janzen
1996 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Clarence Rose
1997 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Phil Mickelson
1998 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Vijay Singh
1999 Sprint International at Castle Pines GC — Won by David Toms
2000 International Presented by Qwest at Castle Pines GC — Won by Ernie Els
2001 International Presented by Qwest at Castle Pines GC — Won by Tom Pernice Jr.
2002 International Presented by Qwest at Castle Pines GC — Won by Rich Beem
2003 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Davis Love III
2004 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Rod Pampling
2005 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Retief Goosen
2006 International at Castle Pines GC — Won by Dean Wilson
2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills CC — Won by Billy Horschel
Ernie Els (left) and Phil Mickelson both posted victories at The International in World Golf Hall of Fame careers.
These are the host courses in Colorado for PGA Tour events:
21 at Castle Pines Golf Club
7 at Cherry Hills Country Club
2 at Denver Country Club
2 at Wellshire Country Club
1 at Columbine Country Club
1 at Meadow Hills Country Club
Among the highlights from Colorado-based PGA Tour events held over the last 86 years:
— Worsham claimed the 1947 Denver Open title at Cherry Hills Country Club less than three months after he prevailed at the U.S. Open.
— A year after tying for second at the Denver Open, Hogan won the title at Wellshire Country Club in 1948, marking his sixth straight victory on the PGA Tour, a run which also included the U.S. Open. But he failed to show up for the trophy ceremony, having left the course as he believed his score wasn’t going to be good enough to prevail.
— The Palmer story at the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills is very well known as the King rallied from seven behind going into the final round with a closing 65 to record his only U.S. Open victory. Jack Nicklaus finished second, while Hogan hit his first 34 greens in regulation on the final day but finished bogey-triple bogey to place ninth.
— The 1961 Denver Open Invitational at Meadow Hills Country Club marked the first of several notable victories by Hill in Colorado, where he became a resident. Others include his record four wins in the Colorado Open at Hiwan Golf Club from 1971-81.
— The 1963 Denver Open at Denver Country Club marked the first of Rodriguez’s eight PGA Tour victories.
— The 1967 PGA Championship at Columbine Country Club is the only men’s open-age major championship held in Colorado at a site other than Cherry Hills CC. The event was supposed to take place at Columbine in 1966, but the 1965 flood of the South Platte River delayed things a year for the Colorado site. Don January won in the final 18-hole playoff in the history of the PGA Championship. Nicklaus finished one stroke out of that playoff.
— Andy North, winner of the 1978 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, finished his playing career with three PGA Tour victories, but with two major titles among them.
— Hard as it is to fathom now, when some victories on the PGA Tour earn winners multi-million payouts, at the time the.inaugural International at Castle Pines was announced, it featured a total purse of $1 million, the largest in PGA Tour history at the time. Among the competitors for the inaugural International (1986) were Nicklaus, Palmer, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Norman, Hale Irwin, Ben Crenshaw, Ray Floyd, Bernhard Langer, Tom Kite, Nick Price and Mark O’Meara. The International featured a modified Stableford scoring system, using points, and with a birdie and a bogey worth more than two pars.
Davis Love III, with International founder Jack Vickers, was one of two players to win the event twice, joining Mickelson.
— The 1990 and 2003 Internationals were won by Love, whose father claimed titles twice at the CGA Junior Match Play in the 1950s and whose son would go on to capture a Colorado Open championship in 2018. The 1990 International marked Love’s first PGA Tour win since his dad died in a plane crash in November 1988. Two players at the 1990 International — Jim Gallagher Jr., and Steve Pate — scored double eagles in the final round at Castle Pines.
— Mickelson, who won the U.S. Amateur and a college golf tournament in Colorado in 1990, prevailed at The International in both 1993 and ’97.
— Janzen sandwiched his 1995 International victory between his U.S. Open wins in 1993 and ’98.
— Clarence Rose (1996) and Dean Wilson (2006) made The International the only PGA Tour wins of their career.
— Singh captured the 1998 International title seven days after winning the PGA Championship.
— David Toms won the 1999 International despite picking up his ball on the 16th hole in the final round, losing the maximum-possible three points in the modified Stableford scoring system. He finished birdie-birdie to prevail. Nineteen years later, Toms would win the U.S. Senior Open in Colorado, at The Broadmoor.
— Els earned the title at the 2000 International, a tournament at which he made his first PGA Tour cut, in 1991.
— After Pernice won the 2001 International, CBS cameras caught one of his daughters, Brooke, who had a disease that caused blindness, putting her hands on her dad’s face, trying to feel the emotion of the moment. Suffice it to say it made for a great TV moment.
— Rich Beem won the 2002 International, but not before past champion Steve Lowery threw a big scare into him by going birdie-eagle-bogey-double eagle from holes 14-17, holing out twice from the fairway during that stretch. Been would go on to post a one-point victory the week before he won the PGA Championship.
— Love used three eagles in a six-hole stretch on Friday to spark his second victory at The International, in 2003, when he claimed four PGA Tour titles, including the Players Championship.
— Goosen won The International in 2005, after claiming U.S. Open titles in 2001 and ’04. Future Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Brandt Jobe, who grew up in the Denver area, led by nine points in the final round, but finished second, one behind Goosen. Jobe never won on the PGA Tour, but this marked one of his four career runner-up finishes on the circuit.
— In the 21st and last International (2006), Wilson won a playoff over U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman, who was trying to become the first player since Nicklaus in 1986 to claim a PGA Tour title the same year he was Ryder Cup captain.
— At the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills — the first PGA Tour event in Colorado in eight years — Billy Horschel scored the first of two successive victories during that year’s FedExCup Playoffs en route to the overall title. The event was named the PGA Tour Tournament of the Year and it raised a then-record $3.5 million for the Evans Scholarship for caddies.
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