Isaiah Fowler places 7th and fellow Coloradan Hudson Blake finishes 9th in separate age groups at Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals at Augusta National; Blake has ‘cool’ interaction with Scottie Scheffler
By Gary Baines – 4/6/2025
The schedule for Sunday morning’s Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals probably didn’t do the Colorado competitors any favors, nerves-wise.
In a national competition televised live by the Golf Channel at arguably the country’s most revered golf venue on the eve of Masters week, it might help DCP National Finals rookies to get started early so that the nerves don’t continue to build on the morning of the event. But the two Coloradans in the field instead were among the last competitors to begin.
In fact, of the 80 junior golfers playing on Sunday at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, Hudson Blake of Fort Morgan and Isaiah Fowler of Greeley were among the final 21 players to start.
Fowler, a 15-year-old who only has been playing golf for three years, tied for seventh place overall in the oldest boys division, for 14-15 year-olds. And Blake, 13, tied for ninth place in the boys 12-13 division.
While a title would have been an extraordinary ending to this year-long journey for the Coloradans, the fact that they placed in the top 10 of their respective age/gender groups in the National Finals is quite a feat considering the 2024-25 “season” started with more than 8,000 competitors in DCP.
Fowler, a golfer from Boomerang Links who last summer/fall won a high school regional and finished sixth at the inaugural 2A state tournament (as a freshman playing for Frontier Academy), placed sixth in chipping, seventh in putting and eighth in driving on Sunday. Fowler won the chipping competition at the Midwest Regionals in September.
As for Blake, who plays out of Quail Dunes Golf Course, placed fourth in chipping, with his two attempts finishing a cumulative 11 feet, 6 inches from the cup. Like Fowler, he claimed the chipping title at the Midwest Regionals. On Sunday, Blake ended up ninth in both driving and putting.
Afterward, following the awards ceremony, Golfweek.com reported that Blake pulled two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler aside.
According to Golfweek, the interaction went like this:
“What’s your favorite worship song?” Blake asked.
Scottie retrieved a cell phone from his pocket and shared the answer: “Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me.”
“That was pretty cool,” Blake said.
At the National Finals, competitors hit two drives (longest one counts), two chips (cumulative distance from the hole for the two counts) and two putts (30 feet and 15 feet; cumulative distance from the hole counts).
Each of the eight gender/age divisions at the National Finals features 10 competitors.
The Coloradans who made it to the National Finals qualified by winning overall Midwest Regional titles in their age/gender divisions at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., in September. In some past years, one of the Regionals has been contested at Colorado Golf Club, then at Castle Pines Golf Club.
All told, 18 Coloradans have qualified for the DCP National Finals, which were first held in 2014. In previous years, competing in the event at Augusta National were Caitlyn Chin twice (2016 and ’19), Luke Trujillo (2016), Arielle Keating (2016), Kaden Ford (2018), Chunya Boonta (2019), Grady Ortiz (2019), Sophia Capua (2022), Matai Naqica (2022), Anthony Chen (2022), Judd Nikkel (2022), Jacob Eagan (2023), Brady Shaw (2023), Koehn Kuenzler (2023), Landry Frost (2024), Simon White (2024) and Sydney Liddell (2024).
Fowler reacts after his putting session on the 18th green at Augusta National.
So at least two players from the Centennial State have qualified for each DCP National Finals from 2022 through 2025.
No Coloradan has ever won a DCP overall title at the National Finals, but three have finished runner-up: Eagan (lost a putt-off for the top spot in 2023), Shaw (also 2023) and Boonta (2019) .
In the National Finals at Augusta National, the 80 golfers compete in driving and chipping in the practice area, then in the putting on the 18th green of the famed course.
In DCP events, contestants score points in each discipline based on how they place in each, with the points added together for a cumulative total.
Three stages of qualifying precede the National Finals: Locals, Sub-Regionals and Regionals.
DCP is sponsored by the Masters, the USGA and the PGA of America. The competition is limited to players 7-15.
RESULTS SUNDAY FOR COLORADANS AT 2025 DCP NATIONAL FINALS AT AUGUSTA NATIONAL GC
ISAIAH FOWLER of Greeley (Tied for seventh place overall, with 12 points, in Boys 14-15)
Eighth place in drive (worth 3 points) — 254.3 yards on first attempt; outside grid on second attempt.
Sixth place in chip (worth 5 points) — 11 feet on first attempt; 3 feet, 9 inches on second attempt = 14 feet, 9 inches cumulative from cup.
Seventh place in putt (worth 4 points) — 2 feet, 9 inches on 30-foot attempt; 1 feet, 11 inches on 15-foot attempt = 4 feet, 8 inches cumulative from cup.
HUDSON BLAKE OF FORT MORGAN (Tied for ninth place overall, with 11 points, in Boys 12-13)
Ninth place in drive (worth 2 points) — Outside grid on first attempt; 167.6 yards on second attempt.
Fourth place in chip (worth 7 points) — 6 feet, 6 inches on first attempt; 5 feet on second attempt = 11 feet, 6 inches cumulative from cup.
Ninth place in putt (worth 2 points) — 6 feet, 4 inches on 30-foot attempt; 1 foot, 2 inches on 15-foot attempt = 7 feet, 6 inches cumulative from cup.
For the complete results from all eight age/gender divisions, 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