CoBank Colorado Women’s Open Features Super Field

Rising stars and a U.S. Women’s Open champion highlight this year’s event.

In humor, music, investing and relationships, timing is everything. And so it is in golf—and not just with swing tempo.

By scheduling the 27^th CoBank Colorado Women’s Open opposite the US Women’s Open, the state championship cost itself an appearance by defending champion Jennifer Kupcho, who’ll be teeing it up this weekend in the USWO at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

However, the benefits of the overlapping events far outweigh the costs, because any player who was not exempt or who did not qualify for the national championship has no LPGA or Symetra Tour event to play in this weekend. This has resulted in one of the strongest fields in the history of the $150,000 CoBank Colorado Women’s Open.

Headlining the group is Liselotte Neumann, the 1988 US Women’s Open champion who captained the victorious European Solheim Cup team in 2013 at Colorado Golf Club. The Swedish golfer, who recently moved to Colorado, will compete this Wednesday-Friday at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club. She’ll be joined by an Olympian (Paula Reto of South Africa), four past champions (Kendall Dye, Lisa DePaulo and locals Erin Houtsma and two-time winner Becca Huffer) and three past low amateurs (Brittany Fan, Jessica Dreesbeimdieke  and Katrina Prendergast) not counting Houtsma, Huffer or net amateur entrant Molly Greenblatt.

Multiple LPGA Tour and Symetra Tour members are in the field including Kristy McPherson, Marissa Steen, Jillian Hollis, Daniela Iacobelli and Savannah Vilaubi who finished T-2 (7-under 212) Sunday in the Symetra Tour event in Florida. Three players from the 2021 Augusta National Women’s Amateur will be competing including amateurs Alexa Pano, Paris Hilinski, and new professional Olivia Mehaffey who placed 9^th overall in the prestigious event at The Masters course.

Numerous collegiate players from around the country ranked in Golfweek’s top 101 (Isabelle Simpson, Erika Danielsson, Tristyn Nowlin) and collegians from Colorado including Caroline Jordaan, Charlotte Hillary and Kelsey Webster will compete, as will multiple Colorado state high school champions (Emma Bryant, Hailey Schalk and Lauren Lehigh). Gabriella Then, who won last week’s Cactus Tour event at nearby Colorado National GC by 10 strokes, will play in her first CO Women’s Open.

A full field of 156 players, including 39 amateurs competing in the simultaneous pro-am completion, will begin play Wednesday with the winner on Friday taking home the $50,000 first place prize.

Catch the action live at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club or follow online here.

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