The Colorado Open Celebrates 50 Years

As the Colorado Open celebrates a half-century, we take a numerical look back.

Denny Dressman

Skill and steady nerves distinguish the best golfers—such as those who compete in the Colorado Open. But for all who step onto a tee box regardless of ability level, the sport is, above all, a game of numbers.

And so, as the Golden Anniversary Colorado Open draws near, numbers that span the first half-century of tournament competition are a fitting way to tell the history of this storied championship, which will be played for the 50th time July 24-27—and for the 11th straight year at the 7,250-yard, par 71, championship course at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club.

The numerical journey across six decades begins with…

28 – The number of years the Colorado Open was played, from its inception, at Hiwan Country Club in Evergreen.

Bob Kirchner, 92 as the 50th renewal unfolds, was president-elect of the Craig Hospital Board of Directors when he conceived the idea of a state open golf championship in 1963.

“The tradition was that the president-elect would be in charge of the major fundraiser for Craig each year,” he recalls. “It was always a dinner with a guest speaker at a downtown hotel.”

Kirchner followed the stolid custom, but afterward thought, “There has to be a better way.”

Hiwan Golf Club opened that year on the site of the former Johnson Ranch. And the adjacent Hiwan Ranch, which stretched from Evergreen to Bergen Park, was in the beginning stages of development as a mountain home community.

Long before the word synergy was popularized, Kirchner recognized the mutually beneficial potential of promoting golf in Colorado, exposing golfers to the fledgling course at Hiwan to market nearby homesites, and creating a new source of support for the hospital, which at the time was still located at its original site in Lakewood.

Kirchner had a connection—his wife, Barbara Buchanan Kirchner, was part of the family that owned Hiwan Ranch. He posed a question: “Why don’t we donate the use of the golf course, and proceeds, to benefit Craig Hospital?” The response from all circles was enthusiastic.

“Craig was nationally known, more than locally known,” Kirchner says. “Craig needed some local exposure. Hiwan did, too. And golf in the state needed something.”

Jim English Sr., who was Low Amateur at the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, recalls playing in something referred to as “the Colorado Open” or “the state open” in the late 1950s. “But it was a minor thing,” English says, “compared to what the Colorado Open became; really minor.”

Kirchner approached Bill Bisdorf, who was the pro at Green Gables Country Club and a leader in the Colorado Section of the PGA, and told him he was thinking of starting something he wanted to call The Colorado Open. Kirchner wanted to know if Bisdorf and other area golf pros would play in the tournament.

Bisdorf ’s answer: “If you’ll guarantee you’ll have it for at least three years.”

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9 – Number of times a score over par won the Colorado Open, including the first seven and the 21st and 23rd tournaments in 1984 and 1986—all played at Hiwan.

Bill Bisdorf won that first Colorado Open in 1964 with rounds of 71-72-79-72—a 14-over-par total of 294—on a Hiwan course that, in its early days, was as raw as every other new golf course.

Officially, Bisdorf received no prize money; there was no announced purse. “But a few of us put up a few bucks,” Kirchner reveals, “so the pros had something to play for. Pros don’t play for golf shop credit.”Bisdorf would win twice more, in 1965 and 1967, and both times the winning total was over par— testament to just how tough Hiwan played. He also finished second in ’66 and ’75; and tied for fifth in ’72. He last played in the Colorado Open in 1992, the first year the tournament was held at Inverness Golf Club.

“I played pretty good the first round,” he says, “but in the second round my hips locked up. It was the only time I ever missed the cut in the Colorado Open.”

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12 – strokes over par was three-time U.S. Open champion and World Golf Hall of Fame member Hale Irwin’s score when he won Low Amateur honors in the 4th Colorado Open at Hiwan in 1968.

Sixteen years later, 1984 Low Amateur Steve Elkington finished 10 over. He turned pro the following year and in 1995 won the PGA Championship and the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour.

From the beginning, Hiwan’s greens were treacherously fast, notes Gary Potter, a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame and unofficial Colorado Open historian, offering an example from Year One.

“Frank Dalpes Sr., the pro at Willis Case Golf Course back then, seven-putted the first green in 1964,” Potter cites.

Bill Loeffler, who played in the Open for the first time when he was only 16 years old, recalls vividly how his first appearance began.

“I got in that year because I won the State Junior Amateur title,” he relates. “I remember starting on the 10th hole. I was playing with J.D. Taylor, the pro at Valley Country Club, and Paul McMullen, the pro at Aurora Hills.

“They both hit their second shots within five feet of the pin, and I thought to myself, ‘Uh-oh. They’re both really good.’

“One four-putted, and the other three-putted. From five feet! When we got on the 11th tee, Taylor said to me, ‘Welcome to Hiwan, kid.’”

Not much had changed by the time the young Australian, Elkington, then a member of the University of Houston golf team, won Low Amateur a decade later.

“The golf course in those days had a fierce reputation for the fastest greens in the world— even quicker than Augusta,” Elk says. “I remember the first hole in practice, I putted right off the green and back into the fairway.”

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18 – Number of PGA Tour winners who either won the Colorado Open or were Low Amateur.

“My recollection is that I played the Colorado Open only once,” Elkington says. “The whole idea at the time was going somewhere to play in a pro tournament. It was a wonderful tournament, a place that embraced young players starting their careers.

The list of “young players starting their careers” at the Colorado Open is indeed impressive. Hale Irwin, Peter Jacobsen, Steve Jones, Bob Tway, Corey Pavin and Phil Mickelson all won Low Amateur honors during the Hiwan years, along with Elkington.

Colorado Open champions who also won on tour include Dave Hill, Larry Mowry, Dan Halldorson, Al Geiberger, Mark Wiebe, Jonathan Kaye, Kevin Stadler, Fred Wampler, Bill Johnston, Steve Jones and Willie Wood.

And the list of tour notables who played at least once during the first 49 Colorado Opens is long and distinguished, among them Sam Snead, Billy Casper, Dow Finsterwald, Fred Couples, Mark O’Meara, George Archer, Bruce Devlin, Tommy Aaron, Bob Goalby, Don January and Dave Stockton.

To date, only two amateurs have won the Colorado Open: United pilot and Colorado Golf Hall of Fame member Gary Longfellow of Lakewood took the 11th Open at Hiwan in 1974; and 20-year-old Brian Guetz of Littleton won the 31st at Inverness in 1994.

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1 – Number of players who have won the Colorado Open as both an amateur and a professional. (Guetz, also as a professional, the 44th at Green Valley Ranch in 2008)

“The two wins were totally different experiences,” says Guetz, now assistant golf coach at his alma mater, Oklahoma State University.

“In the first one, my dad was with me,” Guetz reflects. “The second time I was a dad, and my little girl was right there with me. To this day the Colorado Open is the tournament that’s most near-and-dear to my heart. I played in it every year until I quit playing competitively. Two of my players (from OSU) are going to play in it this year.”

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5 – Number of sites for the Colorado Open in its 50-year history. Following Hiwan: Inverness (1992-97), Saddle Rock (1998-2000), Sonnenalp (2001-02), and Green Valley Ranch (2004-present).

Bob Kirchner ran the Colorado Open for its first 11 years. His successor was Tony Tyrone, a successful mutual fund manager who became Hiwan’s manager after retiring. During Tyrone’s tenure at the Open’s helm, the purse increased from $25,000 in Kirchner’s last year to $100,000 in the tournament’s last nine years at Hiwan.

According to historian Potter, himself a Colorado Open regular for more than a decade and the father of the 1985 Low Amateur, Matt Potter, Tyrone grew the Open’s purse with an innovative combination of money-raising activities and the marketing acumen of Ronn Spargur, who promoted the tournament from the mid ’70s through the late ’80s.

Besides lining up small sponsors, Tyrone heavily promoted amateur flights for players with different handicaps and the Pro-Am, increasing the entry fees generated by both. He also encouraged what became known as The Italian Open, an outing conceived by attorney Al Carmosino for North Denver’s Italian community that was held annually, usually at Lakewood Country Club.

But as the ’90s dawned, so did sweeping change. The International at Castle Pines became an annual stop on the PGA Tour in 1986, stealing the spotlight. And The PGA Tour established the Hogan Tour, forerunner of today’s Web.com Tour, as the developmental “satellite” circuit for the young players who had been the prime participants in the Colorado Opens of the ’70s and early ’80s.

By 1991, “Craig Hospital didn’t want to be the beneficiary anymore,” Kirchner recalls. FirstData Corporation became the Open’s first title sponsor, and the championship moved to Inverness in 1992. When Inverness Hotel and Conference Center was sold, the Open didn’t fit into the new owners’ plans, so it had to find a new home. The City of Aurora had recently opened Saddle Rock Golf Course, and hosting the Open seemed a good way to promote the new course.

Saddle Rock hosted the Open from 1998 to 2000. The event then returned to the mountains when German investor Johannes Faessler acquired the Sonnenalp Hotel and the Singletree residential development and its adjacent golf club in the Vail Valley. He agreed to host the championship.

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'03 – The turning point year for the Colorado Open—the year the tournament was cancelled at the last minute for lack of a sponsor, and the year Pat Hamill, president and CEO of Oakwood Homes, rescued the championship and secured its future.

Born in Grand Ledge, Michigan, a Lansing suburb more than 1,200 miles from Denver, Pat Hamill was five years old when Bob Kirchner started the Colorado Open.

He graduated from the University of Denver in 1981, when Dave Hill won his second of a record four Colorado Opens at the 18th edition of the tournament.

And he founded Oakwood Homes LLC in 1991, the year Bill Loeffler won the last Colorado Open played at Hiwan.

So where was he when the 40th Colorado Open was about to be played at Sonnenalp in 2003? “I have a place in Vail,” he replies, “and DU’s then-golf coach, Eric Hoos, was staying with me when they announced they weren’t going to have the tournament.”

That might have been the end of the Colorado Open, but the avid golfer in Hamill wouldn’t let that happen. Within months he acquired the championship’s dubious assets (name, logos, trademarks, records and past rights to use players’ names) and accepted responsibility for its daunting liabilities.

He refunded 2003 entry fees to all players; paid off outstanding prize money owed from previous play; and made whole every creditor. In all, it cost around $200,000, but it restored the reputation of the Colorado Open and earned the trust and confidence of players, vendors and prospective sponsors going forward.

“It needed to be done to restore the integrity and brand of the Colorado Open,” Hamill says matter-of-factly. “When you look back at all the great people involved in the Colorado Open, and all the great tradition, it was worth saving.”

Hamill owns Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, site of the Colorado Open since 2004, so it’s logical to assume that the Green Valley Ranch connection is at least in part similar to Kirchner’s original Hiwan synergy: a smooth way to promote a land development.

Not so, Hamill emphasizes. “I had not pre-determined where it would be,” he says. “I formed an independent committee to select a site for the tournament, and they recommended Green Valley Ranch. I wouldn’t have chosen that. I didn’t want it to seem self-serving.”

To ensure the independence of the Colorado Open, Hamill established the Colorado Open Golf Foundation, and made The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch the beneficiary of the Colorado Open, administered through the foundation. When The International was squeezed off the PGA Tour tournament schedule, Hamill hired Kevin Laura from the staff of The International to be the Foundation’s CEO and, eventually, tournament director.

Today, the Colorado Open Golf Foundation also operates the Colorado Senior Open (the 15th version of which took place in May) and the Colorado Women’s Open (the 20th anniversary is this August). HealthONE has been the title sponsor of all three Opens since 2004, and negotiations are underway to extend that sponsorship beyond 2015. The combined purses for the three total $250,000.

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3 Number of Colorado Open championships won at different sites by one player. (Bill Loeffler, the 28th at Hiwan in 1991; 30th at Inverness in 1993; and the 40th at Green Valley Ranch in 2004)

“The Colorado Open was always the tournament you built your summer around,” says Loeffler, who played in the championship an astounding 35 times (the last in 2012). “There was always a great field. I loved it. It was the major of the year.”

Each of Loeffler’s three championships is memorable for a different reason.

“When I won in 1991, it was the last year at Hiwan,” he begins. “It was the last tournament my dad watched me play in. He couldn’t walk the course anymore but they gave him a cart so he saw a few holes.” (Bill Loeffler Sr. had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and died the following November.)

Loeffler won it again in 1993, when “was at the height of my ability. I had worked at Inverness as an assistant pro under Tom Babb. I knew the course very well. I was very much in control the whole way. It was a comfortable win.”

Eleven years later Loeffler found himself at yet another new venue for the Open— Green Valley Ranch—and again he had some history with it.

“I had walked the property with Pat Hamill a few years earlier, when they were planning the golf course,” says Loeffler, who at the time owned and operated two courses in Highlands Ranch (Highlands Ranch Golf Course and The Links). “We were trying to build our golf course business at the time, and were thinking about being partners.” It didn’t happen, but Loeffler had gotten a look at the undeveloped terrain.

Loeffler’s win in 2004 earned him an exemption into that year’s International at Castle Pines Golf Club—a brilliant incentive to restore faith in the Open after the previous year’s cancellation. Subsequent Open champions Wil Collins (2005) and Dustin White (2006) also punched their tickets to Castle Pines, with Collins making the cut.

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6 – Number of sudden death playoffs to decide the Colorado Open champion—all decided on the first extra hole.

Two of Loeffler’s three titles were won in sudden death (in 1991 at Hiwan with a birdie, and 2004 at Green Valley Ranch with a par).

With his father Craig on the bag at Sonnenalp in 2002, Kevin Stadler did something special in his professional debut. In a playoff with PGA Tour veteran Gary Hallberg and Nationwide player Brian Kortan, the 22-year-old Stadler set up his win with a towering 250-yard 4-metal approach to the par-five 18th on the first hole of sudden death to set up an easy two-putt birdie.

The most recent of the six playoffs—which earned Guetz his two Colorado Open distinctions— was the largest in the Championship’s history. An impressive four-man field also included Boyd Summerhays, son of former tour pro Bruce Summerhays and brother of current tour player Daniel Summerhays; University of Illinois golf coach Mike Small, one of the top players in his state; and defending Colorado Open champion John Douma, another Scottsdale pro.

“I lucked into the playoff,” Guetz says. “I bogeyed the last hole and thought I was out of it.”

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15,100 – Number of youth golfers who have participated in The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch programs since the Colorado Open championships began benefitting the program in 2005.

The Mission Statement of The First Tee reads: “To impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values, and promote healthy choices through the game of golf.”

The children served by The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch since 2005 range in age from five to 18 years. They are 84% minority, and almost 77% qualify for free or reduced lunch assistance in their schools.

More than 3,700 have enrolled in programs at The First Tee Learning Center, located on the back side of Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, beginning with 24 participants in 2005 and reaching 649 last year. Another 8,000- plus are involved in a variety of outreach programs. And school programs, which began only three years ago, already have engaged more than 3,300 others.

“They are doing a tremendous job,” Kirchner says appreciatively. “It’s very meaningful to me.”

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.