Nicholas Brooks enjoyed the best year of his fledgling golf career in 2025,
in part from a change in late 2024 to a heavy TaylorMade Spider putter he got from Lutheran High School coach Caine Fitzgerald. In June, the rising senior player won the AJGA Colorado Springs Junior at Cheyenne Shadows by seven shots, and his 22-under-par bogey-free score of 194 tied for the third-lowest 54-hole score in AJGA history.
He also qualified for the 2025 U.S. Junior Amateur at Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas and became the first Coloradan since 2017 to advance to match play in that championship, losing to the event’s eventual runner-up, Minh Nguyen of Vietnam.
In the 36-hole Aurora Amateur at Meadow Hills, Brooks won with a 10-under 130, and then in his final 3A state high school championship, he carded another 10-under at Eagle Ranch to capture the individual title by seven shots and led Lutheran’s men’s golf team to its second title in school history. His scoring average of 69.8 as a senior propelled the Lions to seven 3A team wins.
This year, Brooks nearly won two big events—the AJGA’s Wyndham Clark Junior, where he lost on the first playoff hole, and the finals of CGA’s State Junior Championship, where he hit all 18 greens in regulation, went bogey-free and carded a 3-under-par 67—only to lose 1-up to CU-bound Gavin Amella.
A member of the 2026 Team Colorado—part of the elite U.S. National Development Program—Brooks made the cut in the Inspirato Colorado Open and finished fourth among the amateurs in the championship.
In July’s Junior Americas Cup competition at La Costa, Brooks helped the Colorado squad finish fifth in a competitive field of 18 teams from the U. S., Canada and Mexico.
He is currently a freshman on the Butler University men’s golf team in Indianapolis.
