News

By Jon Rizzi, Executive Director

Ten years ago, the Colorado Golf Association highlighted its 100^th Anniversary celebration at The Broadmoor with a “fireside chat” between Jack Nicklaus—who, as a 19-year-old, won the 1959 U.S. Amateur at The Broadmoor—and Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte.

At that same event, the CGA honored six Colorado “People of the Century”: Hale Irwin and Barbara McIntire (Male and Female Players of the Century); Judy Bell (Woman of the Century); Will F. Nicholson, Jr. (Man of the Century); Dennis Lyon (Superintendent of the Century); and Charles “Vic” Kline (Golf Professional of the Century).

All six are in the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

And for the past decade, all but one—Nicholson, the former USGA President and Augusta National Rules Committee Chairman who passed less than a year after the gala at age 87—still walked among us.

In the first five months of 2025, however, we lost two of the remaining five.

DENNIS LYON

Sadly, the first to go in 2025 was also the youngest. A 2005 Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductee and 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Dennis died February 19 at the age of 76.

During a 37-year career serving mainly as the City of Aurora’s manager of golf, Dennis masterminded the city’s growth from one course to as many as seven, and in 1989, while at Aurora Hills Golf Course, he became the first superintendent from a municipal course to be elected president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). He also served as president of the Colorado Golf Association in 2002, and as the general chairman of the 2008 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship when Murphy Creek Golf Course hosted it.

The Craig native received numerous national honors. In 2011, he won the USGA Green Section Award, presented annually to a person who contributes significantly to golf through work with turfgrass. He also received the GCSAA’s Col. John Morley Award for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the golf course superintendent’s profession.

And this year, just two weeks before he died, Dennis received the 2024 Leo Feser Award at the GCSAA annual meeting in San Diego. The award, which goes to the author of the previous year’s best superintendent-written article in the association’s magazine, honored his “Reflections of a Veteran Golf Course Superintendent,” in which he humbly and persuasively imparted the hard-won leadership and life lessons he had learned during his career.

BARBARA McINTIRE

On May 6, just four months after celebrating her 90^th birthday, Barbara passed away at her home in Southern Pines, N.C.

She’d retired there after a distinguished career in golf, much of it spent in Colorado Springs at The Broadmoor, where she moved after competing there as a member of the winning 1962 U.S. Curtis Cup team—one of the six she played on. She and teammate Judy Bell—who later became the first female president of the USGA—co-chaired the annual Broadmoor Ladies Invitation, which drew the nation’s top amateurs throughout its 50-year history. Bell won it three times, McIntire two. The pair also owned and operated the Short Story and six other successful boutique stores at The Broadmoor.

Together with fellow Broadmoor members and Tish Preuss (five winning Curtis Cup teams and a U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur championship) and Nancy Roth Syms (wins in three Curtis Cups and the British Ladies’ Amateur), McIntire and Bell were “amateur golf royalty,” as veteran PGA Professional Earl Svenningsen recalls from his time working at The Broadmoor as an assistant in 1977.

Before arriving in Colorado Springs, Barbara had already made a name for herself. Playing in her first U.S. Women’s Amateur at age 15, she defeated six-time Women’s Amateur champion Glenna Collett Vare in her opening match. She twice finished runner-up in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, and in 1956, she almost became the first amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open, losing in an 18-hole playoff with Kathy Cornelius.

Barbara won a pair of U.S. Women’s Amateurs (1959 and 1964), and after winning the 1960 British Ladies Amateur, she graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. She also appeared on television’s To Tell The Truth before setting off to England for the 1960 Curtis Cup Match versus Great Britain and Ireland.

She shone in six of those biennial competitions, losing only one singles match while playing on the 1958, ’60, ’62, ’64, ’66 and ’72 teams. She also captained the ’76 and ’98 squads. The U.S. team went undefeated in the eight Curtis Cup Matches in which Barbara participated.

Barbara collected myriad championship trophies and worked tirelessly to promote women’s golf, serving for many years (including two as chair) on the USGA’s Women’s Committee. In 2000, the USGA rewarded her with its Bob Jones Award, its highest honor, “in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.”

LEGACY

The deaths of Dennis Lyon and Barbara McIntire represent more than losses for Colorado golf, as both impacted the game on a national level.

Through his work with the CGA, GCSA, and USGA, Dennis championed environmentally sound golf-course maintenance and development with an eye towards sensible, sustainable growth.

“He was very proud of his roots in agronomy,” Colorado Golf Association Executive Director Ed Mate told coloradogolfjournal.com. “That foundation gave him his appreciation for what matters most in the game of golf — a humble green plant. His humility and respect for everyone in the golf operation, regardless of title or pay grade is what made him such a successful leader.”

With fierce competitiveness and quiet grace, Barbara defined women’s amateur golf for decades as a player, businesswoman and administrator.

“I have always played golf simply because I enjoy it, which is, I suppose, the true criteria of a lifelong amateur,” she once said. How many elite players today—men or women—are willing to turn down the riches that may come from turning the game they love into a job for pay?

We inducted Barbara in 1974, a year after our founding, as a member of the second induction class, along with Hale Irwin, fresh off his first of three U.S. Open victories. Dennis entered the pantheon in 2005.

Acknowledging and sharing their accomplishments—and those of their fellow “People of the Century” and the other men and women who have shaped the illustrious history of Colorado golf—is the job of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

And as Father Time inevitably wins his matches with all of them, we will ensure their legacies endure through the next century of Colorado golf.