What awaits us in Colorado golf in 2025? Another very eventful year, including the state’s fourth U.S. Senior Open
By Gary Baines – 1/6/2025
The year 2025 has arrived. Is it just me or does it seem like we just rang in the new millennium? Boy, the years are flying by like an F-16.
In any case, as it pertains to Colorado golf, we’re riding a high coming off the state hosting a PGA Tour event for the first time in a decade — and the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in late August being named the 2024 PGA Tour Tournament of the Year.
And, given what awaits us in 2025, there is a big opportunity to build on that momentum. That’s where we come in here as we weigh in with our annual look-ahead to what’s on the horizon for Colorado golf this year. And there is plenty, as you’ll note below.
Specifically, here are some of the most notable events/happenings that are planned for 2025 golf-wise in the Centennial State, in addition to a few notable things that aren’t certainties but which could have an impact in Colorado golf this year:
— Another big-time tour event — this one the premier tournament on PGA Tour Champions — will come to Colorado about 10 months after the BMW Championship. The East Course at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs will host the U.S. Senior Open June 26-29, marking the third time in 17 years that the event will be held at the resort. Eduardo Romero won at the site in 2008 and David Toms in 2018. The only other U.S. Senior Open held in Colorado was in 1993 at Cherry Hills Country Club, where Jack Nicklaus prevailed.
It will be the ninth USGA championship held at The Broadmoor, which makes it the second-most for a site in Colorado, behind the 10 that Cherry Hills has hosted. In fact, no other Colorado course besides those two has been the site of more than two USGA championships.
In the previous two U.S. Senior Opens at The Broadmoor, attendance for the week was announced at 134,500 (2018) and 128,714 (2008).
This will mark the first time in over a decade that two events linked to the PGA/LPGA/Champions tours will be contested in consecutive calendar years in Colorado. The last such occasion came in 2013-14, with the 2013 Solheim Cup at Colorado Golf Club and the 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills.
— In a related matter, this year marks the first one that qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open will be a two-stage process. In Colorado’s case, local qualifying for the USSO is set for May 5 at Cheyenne Shadows Golf Club at Fort Carson, and the final qualifier will be June 10 at the Country Club of Colorado in Colorado Springs.
— Staying with Broadmoor-related events, The Broadmoor Ladies Invitation, which was a very prestigious high-level event for amateurs from 1928-97, will return starting in 2025, albeit in a different format. From Sept. 8-9 on the resort’s East and West courses, 40 teams each comprised of two women will compete in a better-ball stroke-play event. Gross and net competitions will be held in each flight.
The earlier iteration of The Broadmoor Ladies Invitation had an impressive list of winners, among them World Golf Hall of Famers Babe Zaharias and Judy Bell (three titles each), and Betsy Rawls.
The Broadmoor Ladies Invitation will be resurrected 11 years after The Broadmoor Invitation also returned with a team format.
— Regarding something much sooner on the calendar — as in this week … Denver native Wyndham Clark, will be one of the competitors in the first match ever for TGL, which debuts on Tuesday (7 p.m.) on ESPN. TGL is a primetime indoor team golf league which relies heavily on simulators. Clark’s Bay Golf Club (also featuring Ludvig Åberg, Shane Lowry and Min Woo Lee) will face the New York Golf Club (Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young). For more on that, CLICK HERE.
— The Inspirato Colorado Open championships produced two winners with strong in-state ties last year — Davis Bryant (Colorado Open) and Jonathan Kaye (Colorado Senior Open). What will be in store for 2025 at the events? We’ll find out May 28-30 (Colorado Women’s Open), July 24-27 (Colorado Open) and August. 27-29 (Colorado Senior Open). The host site for all three tournaments will continue to be Green Valley Ranch Golf Club in northeast Denver.
— In 2025, CGA executive director/CEO Ed Mate will become the first person to reach 25 years in that role. And, mind you, he had an earlier working stint at the CGA, and also spent some time on the Colorado PGA staff.
— If everything goes ideally, some new courses in Colorado should officially make their debuts in the next couple of years, depending on how preparations go. Bella Ridge Golf Club in Johnstown is tentatively scheduled to open to the public in the summer of 2025 and Rodeo Dunes in Roggen, northeast of the Denver metro area, is expected to follow suit in 2026.
— The Colorado Golf Expo, traditionally a calendar fixture in February, will give March a try this year as the show is set for March 7-9 at the Colorado Convention Center.
— This year marks significant milestones for Colorado’s two oldest statewide championships as the CGA Match Play will be contested for the 125th straight year and the CGA Women’s Match Play for the 110th. So it seems fitting that the winners will be crowned at a prestigious and historic venue. The first days of the championship are set for CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora, then Denver Country Club will host the final matches — the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals for both the men and the women. Overall dates for the championships are June 16-20. Denver CC hosted the men’s Match Play quite a few times in its early years, but this will be the first time since 1960 that it will serve in that role. As for the CGA/CWGA Women’s Match Play, this will be the first time it’s been held at Denver CC since 1971.
— Also on the CGA championship front, the CGA Women’s Stroke Play — and the Women’s Mid-Amateur Stroke Play — will be held at the Air Force Academy’s Eisenhower Golf Club’s Blue Course July 14-16, a year after the facility hosted the men’s CGA Amateur. And Cherry Hills Country Club will host the semifinals and the final of the CGA Mid-Amateur Match Play on Oct. 8.
— The Colorado Christian men’s golf team, which last year became the first college program in the Centennial State to claim an NCAA national team title in golf, is expected to defend its Division II championship May 20-23 in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Meanwhile, the Cougars will see if they can run their season-opening team win streak to six tournaments when they play Feb. 24-26 in the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate, which features a field of mainly Division I teams in Palm Desert, Calif.
— For those into the long-drive world of golf competition, Colorado will host not one but two World Long Drive events in 2025 at Bigfoot Turf Farm in LaSalle, southeast of Greeley. The most notable is the World Long Drive Championship Sept. 24-28. Also at the same site is the Rocky Mountain Rumble Aug. 15-17.
— Two kids from Colorado will compete in the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, on April 6, the eve of Masters week. Hudson Blake of Fort Morgan (boys age 12-13) and Isaiah Fowler of Greeley (boys 14-15) will become the 17th and 18th Coloradans ever to play in the DCP National Finals, which were first held in 2014.
— One of the most notable USGA qualifying tournaments scheduled for Colorado in 2025 will be that for the U.S. Women’s Open — set for May 13 at Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster. That’s because the successful players at that single-stage — albeit 36-hole — qualifier will earn spots straight into one of the USGA’s top events, the U.S. Women’s Open. The 2025 USWO is scheduled for May 29-June 1 at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.
— For the seventh consecutive year, picturesque TPC Colorado in Berthoud will host a Korn Ferry Tour event. This year’s Ascendant presented by Blue will stay in pretty much the same date slot, with the tournament set for July 10-13. In 2025, 20 Korn Ferry Tour players — down from 30 last year — will earn PGA Tour cards based on season-long performance.
— Former University of Colorado golfer Jeremy Paul will make his PGA Tour debut this week — starting Thursday — at the Sony Open in Honolulu. Paul, who earned his PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 30 on the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour points list, at 30 has never before played in a PGA Tour event. He has one victory in 88 Korn Ferry Tour starts — that one coming a year ago in the Bahamas. Also teeing it up at the Sony Open to start the 2025 PGA Tour season is Denver native Mark Hubbard.
— Meanwhile, another player with strong Colorado ties who is making the transition to top-level tour golf is Aurora resident Davis Bryant, who earned his DP World Tour card last month. Bryant already made his DPWT debut — finishing 42nd at the Mauritius Open shortly before Christmas. He’s likely to resume his tour schedule late this month during a Middle East swing for the DPWT.
— New this year to the Colorado golf schedule will be an event on the Annika Women’s All Pro Tour. The 72-hole Colorado Championship at Todd Creek will debut July 29-Aug. 1 at Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton, where the purse is expected to be about $55,000.
— One again this year, three AJGA tournaments are scheduled for Colorado, including the one named for the 2023 U.S. Open champion — and Denver native — Wyndham Clark. The Wyndham Clark presented by the Colorado Golf Association is scheduled for June 4-6 at Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster. The next week, the AJGA Colorado Springs Junior will be held June 10-12 at Cheyenne Shadows Golf Club at Fort Carson. Then the AJGA Junior Open at The Bridges presented by the City of Montrose is set for July 30-Aug. 1 at The Bridges Golf & Country Club in Montrose.
— Another large class — five people — will be inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame this year, with a date and site for the dinner to be determined. Making up the 2025 classic are amateurs Robert Polk and Jon Lindstrom, superintendents Lance Johnson and Rollie Cahalane, and longtime PGA pro Tom Apple.
— Geoff Keffer, an assistant PGA professional at Lakewood Country Club, in 2025 will attempt to reach double digits regarding number of years being named the Colorado PGA Dow Finsterwald Player of the Year. Keffer already owns the record, being the Section’s overall POY nine times.
— After making his Ryder Cup debut in 2023 and his Presidents Cup and Olympics debuts in 2024, Denver native Wyndham Clark will try to represent the U.S. again when the Americans face the Europeans in the Ryder Cup Sept. 26-28 at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y. Clark will need to be in the top six in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings on Aug. 20 to earn an automatic berth on the team. Six other players will be added to the American roster via captain’s picks.
— The Colorado PGA Professional Championship — the top CPGA tournament of the year — will go down south for its 2025 event. Flying Horse North, northeast of the Air Force Academy, will host the competition Sept. 15-17.
— Last year, Colorado Springs amateur Colin Prater beat the odds by advancing from a U.S. Open local qualifier in Colorado, then earning a berth in the championship in a final qualifier in Oregon. This year, three U.S. Open local qualifiers are set for Colorado — two on May 6 (Collindale and Walnut Creek) and one of May 8 (Broadlands). Then, for those who advance, a 36-hole final qualifier out of state will be the next step.
All in all, 2025 in Colorado golf promises to be one eventful year.
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