Defending champion falls at Colorado Match Play
Connor Klein
AURORA, Colo. — Connor Klein of Lone Tree Golf Club assured Wednesday that the Colorado Match Play Championship won't have its first back-to-back winner since 1990-91.
Klein, who helped lead South Mountain (Ariz.) Community College to the 2015 national junior college Division II title, defeated defending champion Cody Kent of The Club at Ravenna 3 and 2 in Wednesday's round of 16 at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora.
Klein (left) won the first three holes and was 5 up through 11 en route to his second victory of the day.
The Match Play, being contested for the 115th consecutive year, is guaranteed to have a first-time champion as the only other past winner left playing on Wednesday was ousted. Gus Lundquist of Colorado Golf Club, a former 5A state high school champion, beat 2004 Match Play winner Steve Irwin of Lakewood Country Club 3 and 1, also in the round of 16.
Among the others who advanced to Thursday's quarterfinals were 2014 CGA Stroke Play runner-up Nick Nosewicz of Meadow Hills Golf Course, the stroke-play medalist this week, and last year's CGA Match Play runner-up, Jacob Allenback of Walking Stick Golf Course.
Both the quarterfinals and the semifinals are scheduled for Thursday, while the 36-hole final is set for Friday.
View results for Colorado Match Play
ABOUT THE Colorado Match Play
The CGA Match Play Championship will be played
using the PGA TOUR style match play Pod
Play system at gross scoring. This means that any
player who qualifies for the
championship will be guaranteed at least three (3)
matches in the championship at
CommonGround Golf Course. After each player is
ranked (see below), all players will be
distributed into their pod with three (3) other
players. This will yield 16 pods of four (4)
players. Each player will play all three other players
in their pod (see schedule below). The
winner of each pod will advance to the Round of 16
and a single elimination knockout
round will be played at CommonGround Golf Course.
The top 8 players will advance to
complete the championship at Colorado Golf Club in
a single elimination bracket.
Player Seeding: All 64 players will be ranked 1 – 64.
The defending champion will be
ranked #1. Exempt players will be ranked next based
on their 2020 CGA Player of the Year
points standings. The rest of the field of 64 will be
made from qualifying players that came
from an off-site qualifier. Qualifying players will be
ranked in order of their qualifying score
at their given site.
Pod Assignments/Seeding: The pods will follow the
PGA TOUR style of randomized drawing.
Once players have been seeded 1 - 64, players will
be drawn at random so that each pod
will consist of a player ranked 1 - 16 (Player 1), 17 -
32 (Player 2), 33 - 48 (Player 3) and
49 - 64 (Player 4).
Pod Play Scoring: There will be no extra holes during
the pod play portion of matches.
Scoring during pod play will be as follows: Match
Won – 1 point | Match Tied – ½ point |
Match Lost – 0 Points.
Note: If there is a tie for the pod winner, a sudden
death playoff will determine the person
advancing from that pod.
View Complete Tournament Information