CGA begins its condensed championship season with strong field at Senior Four-Ball
By Gary Baines – 5/25/2020
After the postponement of two earlier events, this week marks the beginning of the CGA championship season, which will feature almost two-dozen competitions over the spring, summer and fall of 2020.
In fact, the CGA Senior Four-Ball Championship, set for Tuesday through Thursday at Thorncreek Golf Course in Thornton, marks one of the first — if not the first — 2020 tournament run by one of the major golf organizations in Colorado. The Colorado PGA, the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado and the CoBank Colorado Open Championships are planning to start their seasons next week, in early June.
All of the aforementioned events are being conducted with safety precautions, given the novel coronavirus, with these guidelines in place for the Senior Four-Ball.
But mainly, it will be fun for golf fans to finally be able to follow some high-level competitive golf in the state in 2020.
The CGA Senior Four-Ball will be conducted for the 39th time, and many of the top senior players in the state will be on hand, as usual. In fact, all of the recent CGA Senior Players of the Year are entered: Scott Sullivan (2019), Steve Ivan (2018), Keith Atkins (2017), Robin Bradbury (2016), David Delich (2012 and ’15) and Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kent Moore (2006 and ’14), along with Sean Forey (2010), Robert Polk (2007, ’08 and ’09) and Scott Radcliffe (2003).
The winners of 11 past Senior Four-Balls — complete teams or part of a team — are scheduled to be on hand at Thorncreek. Intact teams that have won the Senior Four-Ball together include Thomas Roos and Denny Fields (2019), Polk and Bill Fowler (2016 and ’18), Raymond Kelley and Doug Moore (2017), Robert Beiersdorf and Richard Kelly (2015), John Applegate and Keith Masters (2011), and Forey and Radcliffe (2003).
Among the other entrants in the 48-team field for the 54-hole better-ball stroke play event are Moore and CGA executive director Ed Mate, 2019 CGA Senior Amateur champ John Hornbeck and ’19 U.S. Senior Amateur round-of-16 competitor Victor Minovich, brothers David and Chuck Delich, 2018 runners-up Guy Mertz and Tony Workman, and Bradbury and Owen Ellis, the doctor who has been helping the CGA set COVID-19-related protocols.
The CGA Senior Four-Ball this year is limited to players 54 and older. Those teams with both players 64 and older will also compete in the super-senior division of the event. Bob Cloud and Jim Reynolds will be defending their super-senior division title this week.
For Tuesday’s first-round tee times, CLICK HERE.