Forethoughts: The News That Travels Fast

Jon Rizzi

This article appears in the Winter 2016 issue of Colorado AvidGolfer. Subscribe today!

Our Winter travel issue can’t come soon enough. We all need a vacation.

I, like many of you, am suffering from annus horribilis, which is not the proctologic malady it sounds like. It means “a year of disaster or misfortune.” Queen Elizabeth II famously used it to describe 1992, a year in which three of her children’s marriages spectacularly and publicly disintegrated and Windsor Castle burned.

Is it too much of a stretch to call 2016 our 1992? After all, in September the golf world lost its royalty when The King, Arnold Palmer, passed away at age 87. But Colorado golf also lost a regal foursome of Hall of Fame members.

Will Nicholson Jr., former USGA president and chairman of the Masters’ competition committee at Augusta National, died in March. Will commanded the golf scene in Colorado for most of his 87 years, presiding over the Colorado Golf Association’s board of governors and chairing the Colorado Golf Foundation.

Jim English, who won the low amateur title in the 1959 U.S. Open and state amateur titles in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado, passed in June. Jim also won the 1950 Trans-Miss and two Broadmoor Invitations.

A four-time winner of the Colorado Senior Match Play, 91-year-old Ed Nosewicz passed in July, and two months later Bill Bisdorf, who won three of the first four Colorado Opens played at Hiwan Golf Club, shuffled off this mortal coil. He was 87.

Two other supporters of Colorado golf also left us too soon. Penny Parker, a gifted columnist and passionate Green Valley Ranch Golf Club player, passed away on January 1 at age 62. Nine months later, we lost 64-year-old former Denver Post sportswriter and Colorado Golf Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Tom Kensler.   

As if this weren’t enough, 2016 silenced many of the talents responsible for the soundtrack of my early life: David Bowie, Prince, Maurice White, George Martin, Glen Frey, Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell.

Compounding my weltschmerz, a recent Facebook glitch surprised millions of users with their own “memorial” pages. Their demises were greatly exaggerated, but I unfortunately can’t say the same for civility in a country that endured the most polarizing presidential campaign in history. The ugliness following the election has only divided us further.

But, hey, let’s look at the bright side. At least we now know the Americans can beat the Europeans in the Ryder Cup. We will have yet another avid golfer in the White House—and this one’s home courses really are his courses. Better yet, as you’ll read in this issue, for the first time in years there are new places to play in Arizona and Texas!

Closer to home, the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado—the partnership between the Colorado PGA, Colorado Golf Association and Colorado Women’s Golf Association—completed a fabulous debut season. The future of the game looks brighter than ever.

Speaking of a bright future, former CWGA Junior Player of the Year and current Player of the Year Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster finished her fall sophomore season at Wake Forest atop the ANNIKA Award Watch List as the favorite to win the award for the nation’s best collegiate female player.

And on another positive note, with a $250,000 purse and $100,000 winner’s share, the CoBank Colorado Open Championship now ranks as the richest state open in the country and the 2016 tournament attracted the deepest field in recent memory.

On the whole, there’s more good to 2016 than the riddance I wish it. Bring on 2017!

More “Forethoughts” from editor Jon Rizzi:

Betting the Spread

Decoding the Good Life

Summer Called, Some Aren’t

Filling the Bucket

Healthy Concerns

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

GET COLORADO GOLF NEWS DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX