Colorado Golf Hall of Fame Announces 2017 Class

For the first time in 32 years, the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame will welcome only one new member when the Class of 2017 is inducted next spring.

That sole inductee is M.J. Mastalir, a longtime USGA Executive Committee member and Colorado Golf Association governor who spearheaded the acquisition and development of the property that has become CommonGround Golf Course.

The CGHOF will induct Mastalir during a May 21^st dinner at Sanctuary Golf Club in Sedalia. The last solo inductee was Paul McMullen in 1985.

Mastalir, however, won’t be the only one honored that evening. The CGHOF Board of Directors will also recognize individuals and organizations for their accomplishments: Rick Polmear, winner of the Will F. Nicholson, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award; the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado, recipient of the Distinguished Service Award; and Jennifer Kupcho, the Golf Person of the Year.

MEET THE INDUCTEE:

After graduating from Boulder High School, M.J. Mastalir attended the University of Colorado and lettered on the men’s golf team that captured the 1967-1968 Big Eight Championship and tied for eighth in the NCAA Championship. He went on to qualify and compete in the 1980 and 1985 U.S. Amateur, 1981 U.S. Mid-Amateur and the 1984 and 1987 British Amateur.

A member of Denver Country Club, where he currently plays off a 7.2 index, Mastalir earned his Hall of Fame bona fides off the course. Spending his professional career in the mortgage-banking world, in 1985 he started Real Estate Capital Corporation, which, he says, “created a national financing plan when the game needed it. It gave people the ability to build a golf course without having to be best friends with the banker next door.”

To date, Mastalir has underwritten and obtained commitments on properties across the country totaling nearly $1 billion.

In addition to helping finance numerous golf courses around the state, he served as a member of the USGA’s Executive Committee from 1986 to 1993, rising to the title of Vice President. He chaired numerous committees, including the powerful Rules of Golf, and five national championships, including the 1990 US Amateur and 1993 U.S. Senior Open—both contested at Cherry Hills Country Club.

Mastalir’s 21-year tenure on the CGA’s Board of Governors also began in 1986. He served as the organization’s president from 1997 to 1999 and used his understanding of the business of the game to acquire the Mira Vista Golf Course from the U.S. Air Force. “We had to differentiate ourselves from all the other developers who were looking at it,” he remembers. “And our pitch was that we were going to make it a community asset, a place where we would develop programs and people.”

The CGA won the bid and not only did CommonGround get built; it has also thrived as an incubator for golf’s future. “It’s what I’m most proud of,” he says of the facility. “The course, the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, the par-three kids course, the putting course—it’s all for the good of the game and its future. A hundred years from now, it’ll still be going strong.”

THE HONOREES:

PERSON OF THE YEAR: Westminster’s Jennifer Kupcho, currently a sophomore at Wake Forest University, continued to dominate the Colorado women’s golf scene by sweeping the CWGA Stroke Play and Match Play Championships, qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open, placing sixth in the NCAA championships as a freshman and firing a 15-under-par 201 to win Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational in October. Her 19-stroke margin of victory in this year’s CWGA stroke play was the largest margin of victory since the 21 strokes by which she won in 2015.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:  Rick Polmear volunteered roughly 1,000 hours as project manager for the $6 million CU Evans Scholars house renovation and expansion, which was completed last January. A senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle with 34 years of experience, Polmear is a former Evans Scholar and CGA president who has chaired the Scholarship House Committee for 27 years.

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE: The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame will award its Distinguished Service honor to the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado—a partnership between the Colorado PGA, Colorado Golf Association and Colorado Women’s Golf Association that concluded its highly successful inaugural season with its Junior Tour Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club. As the “one-stop-shop for competitive junior golf,” the JGAC pioneered a clear, streamlined pathway and programs for parents, kids and instructors to follow.

The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame dinner will take place May 21 at Sanctuary in Sedalia.

Sanctuary will also host the annual Colorado Golf Hall of Fame Tournament June 29. The event, an 11:30 shotgun, will feature 30 foursomes at $1,000 per foursome.

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