Past, Present and Future

BRINGING TOGETHER 20 girls and women from across the state took some coordination and a lot of phone calls. What it didn’t take was persuasion.

In this edition you’ll find a special report that we’re calling Colorado: The state of women’s golf.

To illustrate the point of the article – that women make up a diverse and growing part of the game in the Centennial state – we wanted to take a photo worthy of their variety.

So we gathered in early June beside the 18th green of Denver’s City Park Golf Course. The view from the clubhouse patio is simply stunning –downtown city scape, majestic mountains. Few things say ‘THIS is Colorado’ like that view.

And the women we asked to join us all got the same explanation: Would you be willing to fight through Denver traffic early one morning and represent thousands of other women like you in a photo showing the diversity of Colorado women’s golf?

The answer, every time, was ‘Yes!’

The photo is running in all its glory on page 70. The women and girls who represent the past, present and future of Colorado golf are:

Sitting, left to right: Brenna and Elle Higgins – Brenna is the 2023 Colorado Girls high school state champion and she and her sister helped lead their high school team, Valor Christian High School, to the 2023 state championship. Ella and Olivia Martin of Brighton, students of the First Tee program at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club; Velvia Garner, active player at City Park and Green Valley Ranch golf clubs; Tana Knopf, City Park Women Golfers League rules chair.

Standing, left to right: Sherry Andonian, PGA professional from Centennial; Paula Purifoy, CEO of the First Tee - Colorado Rocky Mountains; Kelly Clark of Denver, 30-year golfer; Molly Greenblatt, Denver attorney, past board chair of the Colorado Open Golf Foundation; Erica Yates, Director of Programming for First Tee - Colorado Rocky Mountains; Julie Bryant, Executive Director, First Tee – Green Valley Ranch; Marla Parcels, Volunteer Coordinator, First Tee – Colorado Rocky Mountains; Nancy Syms, Colorado Springs Realtor, three-time member of U.S. Curtis Cup teams and member of Colorado Golf Hall of Fame; Cathy Matthews-Kane, Colorado Springs, president of the Colorado PGA; Arri Astrada, Westminster, former member Western New Mexico University golf team, program coordinator for First Tee – Colorado Rocky Mountains; Kelly Reidy, president of Reidy Metal Services and First Tee supporter and volunteer; Longdrive champion and Denver Realtor Monica Lieving; Ellie Rodriguez and Georgia Meysman-Sharpe, rising freshmen at the University of Colorado through the Evans Scholars caddy scholarship program; and Carmen Barber, past president of City Park Women Golfers league.