Southern Pines, N.C. – The United States Golf Association announced today the 2011 Women’s Open will be played at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. The site, which has hosted five national championships, will also host the 2008 Senior Men’s Open.
“We’ve gotten the question a lot about having two events so close together, but we don’t consider it a problem – we feel the momentum from the Senior Men’s will carry us right into the Women’s Open,” said Russ Miller, the director of golf for The Broadmoor.
Ever since the 2005 Women’s Open at Cherry Hills Country Club, an event that set attendance records, the USGA has said it would return to Colorado. The assumption was that when it happened, the tournament would return to Cherry Hills. However, the facility recently issued an invitation to the USGA to play the U.S. men’s amateur there; in recent years that has been a precursor to host the U.S. Men’s Open.
Colorado has hosted three U.S. Men’s Opens, in 1938, 1960 and 1978, each at Cherry Hills.
According to USGA executive director David B. Fay, the membership at Cherry Hills has not asked the organization to return for the Women’s Open.
“We’ve always said we want to come back to Cherry Hills but we need that first step,” Fay said. “We haven’t decided on the 2013 championship, but we haven’t had a formal invitation. They’ve invited us for the amateur; maybe a good place to start would be asking Cherry Hills, ‘What is it that you want?'”
The 2014 Women’s Open will be held at Pebble Beach in northern California, which would seemingly make it unlikely that the USGA would spend so much time in the West. Fay said neither that, or the fact that the tournament will be in Colorado in 2011, would eliminate another trip to the state.
“Yes, it would be two Opens in a 2-3 year period at locales that are a couple of hours apart, but that’s not unheard of,” Fay said.
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
