Sometimes local knowledge of a golf course can mean everything. On other occasions, not so much.
The opening round of the Colorado Senior Open proved to be a case in point Wednesday. Castle Rock’s Bill Loeffler won the 2004 Colorado Open at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club and could probably draw a topographic map of the 6,827-yard layout in his sleep. Loeffler waltzed to a bogey-free round of 5-under-par 67 to take a one-shot lead.
“I like this golf course a lot,” Loeffler said.
Nipping at his heels, however, are a couple of newbies.
Playing their first tournament rounds at Green Valley Ranch, Mark Rohde of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Doug LaCrosse of Tampa, Fla., managed to find their way around the course and opened with 68s. Rohde, who played on the PGA Tour in 1980 and ’81 but now sells insurance, arrived Tuesday in Denver and at least got in a practice round.
LaCrosse, who tried to qualify Monday for the Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach, got to Green Valley Ranch just before dusk Tuesday, barely in time to hit a couple of practice balls onto a green and take a cart tour around the course.
“I was able to get a pretty good idea about which way the holes went,” said LaCrosse, who rolled in four consecutive birdie putts beginning at No. 11, his second hole. “But there was always that nervousness in the back of my mind.”
Loeffler, general manager and part owner of two golf courses in Highlands Ranch, became eligible to play in senior events on Aug. 9 when he turned 50. A PGA Tour player from 1980-82, he missed only one green Wednesday.
“I’m shocked,” Loeffler said. “I hadn’t been playing well this summer.”
Defending champion Mike Zaremba of Pueblo West said he didn’t strike the ball crisply. But he still ranks among the leaders with a 70.
“Golf is all about confidence and I’ve got to find some,” Zaremba said.
The most famous competitor in this event shot an 80. Ralph Terry played five years on the Senior PGA Tour in the early 1990s but is known more for his days as a New York Yankees pitcher. The Larned, Kan., resident was named MVP of the 1962 World Series after outdueling San Francisco’s Jack Sanford in a 1-0 seventh game.
Two years earlier against Pittsburgh, Terry served up Bill Mazeroski’s World Series-winning home run.
So other golfers at Green Valley Ranch must have asked Terry for autographs, right? Not quite.
“Naw, people don’t remember me. But that’s OK. It’s a long time ago,” said the 70-year-old Terry, who is playing in his first Colorado Senior Open.
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
