The 2030 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship will be held at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, the United States Golf Association announced Monday. It will be the second USGA championship at the course, following the 2019 U.S. Mid-Amateur.

The Centennial State has hosted a string of notable golf tournaments in recent years.

The 2023 U.S. Amateur Championship was held at Cherry Hills Golf Club, an event co-hosted by Colorado Golf Club. That same year, the U.S. Girls’ Junior was held at Eisenhower Golf Club at the U.S. Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs.

The 2024 BMW Championship, the state’s first PGA Tour event since 2014, was held at Castle Pines Golf Club. And earlier this year, The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs held the U.S. Senior Open Championship.

Colorado Golf Club, which opened in 2006, has established itself as a premier course over its couple of decades of existence. The Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design, which was once an Arabian horse ranch, hosted the 2010 Senior PGA Championship and the 2013 Solheim Cup, in addition to other state and regional tournaments.

The U.S. Junior Amateur is open to amateur golfers who are 19 years or younger with a handicap that doesn’t exceed 2.4. It will feature a field of 264 golfers, which is then cut to the top 64 scorers for match play. There are five 18-hole rounds of match play, followed by a 36-hole championship match.

Past winners of the event include Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods and David Duval.

“Colorado Golf Club is a strategic and demanding championship venue, and we could not be more proud to welcome the 2030 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship,” Colorado Golf Club director of golf Graham Cliff said in a statement. “With an emphasis on the future generation of professional golfers, the Junior Amateur is meaningful to our members and to golf enthusiasts everywhere. When you look at the past winners of this event, it is clear to see that these competitors are the future of professional golf. We are thrilled to host in 2030.”

All week, players raved about the resort, the challenging East Course, and the trademark Centennial State surroundings. The USGA also announced earlier in the week that the U.S. Senior Open will return here in 2031 and 2037.

“It’s been fantastic,” said Stewart Cink, who finished second in a four-day duel with champion Padraig Harrington by one stroke. “The Broadmoor has been great to us. It’s been a great place to stay. The golf course is so fun. Highly recommend the golf course to anybody who’s looking for a golf trip. It was just a lot of fun out there trying to figure this place out.”

The two biggest topics with the players over the course of the week were the extremely tough greens and the altitude adjustments. While the USGA had no official attendance figures for the event, there was plenty of praise for the lively crowds and how well the course held up despite near-daily afternoon storms, including hail on Tuesday.

“I love the area. We’ve had a blast since we’ve been here,” said Steven Alker, who finished seventh. “The golf course itself it’s just tricky. The greens, probably the toughest green complexes I’ve ever putted, to be honest.”

Club pro goes low: Before Miguel Angel Jimenez went wild with eight birdies, Jason Caron set the tone for a low-scoring day with a 5-under 65. It was the best round of the tournament until Jimenez carded a 64 a few hours later.

“I thought I played pretty good most of the week,” Caron said. “I think I made some … not the best decision-making was my downfall for the week. Then today I hit it close a bunch, which I didn’t have to rely on thinking about where the mountain is, just kind of like only the two-, three-, four-footers. That was nice.”

A 52-year-old club pro at Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, N.Y., Caron entered the final day at 4-over, but his 65 pushed him all the way up to ninth place. Finishing in the top 15 at this event guarantees him a spot in the 2026 U.S. Senior Open.

“I’ll be back to work on Tuesday,” Caron said. “We have Monday off. Splitting time out here on the PGA Tour Champions and working at Mill River.”

Hensby’s rough finish: Unfortunately, Mark Hensby wasn’t lying Thursday when he called himself “hot or cold.”

Sunday’s championship was set up as a three-horse race, with Hensby matching Padraig Harrington and Stewart Cink step-for-step despite a smaller career resume. Hensby’s appearance in the final group wasn’t a surprise, Cink noted Saturday, saying he thought the three then-leaders had all played “really similar.”

Within a few holes Sunday, though, it was clear Hensby had fallen back, the Australian finishing tied for fourth in the field after shooting a 73. On hole after hole, his putts stopped an inch short or veered an inch left. Hensby’s only reaction was to simply wince and look to the heavens. His score of 5-under, though, still would’ve won the Senior Open in 2018.

“I’m going to be honest, today I just got off to a bad start,” Hensby said. “We just hit a few clubs that probably weren’t the right clubs and hit it in some bad spots where it’s hard to two-putt. Just couldn’t get any momentum going. Just couldn’t get the putter right today.”

But there will also be fond memories of the electric charge Miguel Angel Jimenez put into the final day by storming up the Sunday leaderboard with the round of the tournament. Jimenez roared from six shots back early in his day to get within one stroke of Harrington’s lead before settling for third place.

His final tally: A bogey on the first and last holes, but in between was eight birdies for a magical 6-under and the only 64 of the tournament.

“This golf course is not easy. I played today very well,” Jimenez said. “I gave myself a lot of chances for birdie. … I played brilliant.”

Jimenez began the day at 3-under, five shots back of Harrington, Cink and Mark Hensby. Playing two groups in front of that trio, Jimenez immediately dropped a shot, but birdies on the third and fourth holes helped him keep up with a hot start from Harrington and Cink.

A birdie at No. 14 got him to 9-under, which was just two shots back of the leaders. That’s when Harrington took notice.

“I don’t scoreboard watch, especially as myself and Stewart were going well, I didn’t need to scoreboard watch,” Harrington said. “I knew it was between me and him. We stalled up on the back nine, which often happens. We kind of hit a wall. So on 13, I did ask my caddie, ‘Is it just me and Stewart, or is there anybody else here?’

“I knew he got to 9(-under). I was worried about Miguel because good things are happening to Miguel at the moment. … He’s in that frame of mind to do crazy things.”

Jimenez got to 10-under with his eighth birdie of the day at the 16th hole. His tee shot on the par-3 was solid. The putt was even better. When the Spaniard holstered his putter like a gunslinger in the old West to a large cheer from the gallery, the most interesting man at The Broadmoor this week was firmly in title contention.

His approach on the 17th was too far afoot for another birdie try, and then his tee shot at No. 18 went too far left into the thick rough. Jimenez had to lay up in front of the water-protected green, and it left him with a tough par putt that just missed.

“If I had a chance to get on the green, I would go for that,” Jimenez said. “But as I was talking with my caddie, okay, maybe you can pass the water, but we cannot do anything from there. Is it worth the risk?

“I’ve been hitting very well all week. We make mistakes. We are human. Just made a couple of mistakes. Made a few too many bogeys. Yesterday I finished 2-under par with five bogeys. … Today I make two bogeys too many.”

Jimenez has been one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour Champions circuit this season. He has won three major tournaments on this tour, including one last week when he birdied the final two holes to force a playoff.

He got rolling again on Sunday. Harrington might not have been doing a lot of scoreboard watching, but Jimenez was.

“Of course I’m looking at the scoreboard,” Jimenez said. “I know where I am, of course. I put pressure on me. If there’s pressure there, you know that you are close.

“Yesterday, 10-under par is the target. It’s going to be minus-11 to win, but that is the target to make some impression there.”

And quite the impression was made.

By the time he paced out to the pond in front of a final-hole green, Stewart Cink had one last gasp remaining. One stroke down to the all-too-familiar Irishman he putted next to and chased for four straight days. One approach shot left, to set up a birdie and hope for a tie. He set up and looped a shot over the pond.

It plopped onto the green, a few feet from the hole, and a throng in the grandstands erupted.

OOOHHHHH!

And then, as if poked with an invisible pencil, it began to roll.

Ohhhhhhh.

For a week straight, virtually every golfer who’s taken a microphone at the U.S. Senior Open pointed to greens as difficult as any course in the country. The adjectives have flown. Wicked. Treacherous. And it was only fitting that a particularly treacherous slope on the 18th hole determined the winner of Sunday’s U.S. Senior Open, Cink’s second shot on a par-4 sliding to the far edge of the green and effectively killing his hopes.

A couple of putts and a tap-in for par later, and Padraig Harrington, the jolly World Golf Hall of Famer, plucked his ball out of the cup and raised his right hand to the crowd, the man who’d paced the field for four days holding off Cink to win his second Senior Open crown.

“I think, winning a U.S. Senior Open, or any tournament on the Champions Tour — it kind of validates the past in a lot of ways,” a beaming Harrington said after his win Sunday. “Genuinely, I know I’ve said this, you are reliving the past glories. You’re hitting shots, and you’re waving at the crowds, and people come out ���𳦲��ܲ�����they know you from the past.”

The 53-year-old Harrington was the most popular man on the course for four days, ever since he shot a 32 through his first nine holes Thursday and through a gritty seven straight pars down the stretch of a brutal back nine Sunday. The “atta boys” and the “come on, Padraigs” came flying from onlookers at nearly every stroll across the fairway, a man who once won two consecutive Open Championships and a PGA title experiencing another dosage of late-career glory.

“We were watching it on our phone,” said Harrington’s wife, Caroline, “and we could hear all the cheers from around the course, because so many people here — the support has been unbelievable this week.”

Sunday, though, was the furthest thing from a victory lap. This was a course, Harrington said earlier in the week, where you simply couldn’t sit in a clubhouse and plan your clubs for 18 holes. Each tee, each stroke, each green brought its own in-the-moment calculus, constantly changing variables from the softness of the grass to unpredictable weather.

Even as a thick, gray cloud hung over Harrington’s group, with Cink and Australian Mark Hensby tied with him at 8-under par heading into Sunday, the skies never opened. Still, it added a hint of danger to an already-tense trio.

Hensby pushed for three days, but twisted his mouth in dismay as putt after putt skidded just inches askew of holes. It left Harrington and Cink locked in a two-man race early. Most friendly banter had vanished, as Harrington threw his hands up in frustration before a couple of shots, when spectator noise infiltrated his preparation.

Cink’s sheer precision quickly stamped him a top contender at The Broadmoor, as he hit an unreal 35 of 36 greens across his first two days. When told of the statistic Friday, honorary chairman Hale Irwin remarked Cink “must be a psycho.”

“Sick,” Irwin said then. “The guy’s sick.”

After sinking a putt for par on the 10th hole, Cink got a stroke on Harrington. And as the lead flipped back on subsequent holes, Cink put himself in prime position to nab the crown on the 16th and 17th with a sequence of beautiful tee and approach shots.

Twice, though, his short birdie putts — both would’ve tied Harrington — trickled off the cup.

“It’s frustrating, because I hit really good iron shots there to put myself in position to get up there and force Harrington to make a little bit more of a heroic finish than just pars,” Cink said. “But it wasn’t to be.

“I don’t know, that’s Broadmoor for you,” he continued. “I wish I could have those two putts over.”

Harrington’s family watched anxiously, too, as Miguel Angel Jimenez mounted a miraculous run two groups ahead, putting in four birdies in the span of six holes on the back nine. Entering the 18th hole, Jimenez stood just a stroke back of Harrington at 10-under. But a wayward tee shot resulted in a bogey, setting up the final faceoff of a tournament-long faceoff between Cink and Harrington.

“Even though he’s a peer, he’s a guy I’ve always also looked up to because I’ve played with him so much,” Cink said, Harrington a frequent course partner throughout his career. “And I admire the way he — he kind of treats golf the way I want to treat golf myself. He’s in the present. He never gives up.”

Harrington did enough with a picture-perfect approach shot on 18 to raise the trophy with a final mark of 11-under. In 2018, David Toms won the title at the same venue with a 3-under. And as the grass settled on Sunday’s scintillating battle, both Harrington and Cink had set a new standard for Senior Opens to come, with the tournament set to return to The Broadmoor in 2031 and 2037.

“It was just a lot of fun out there,” Cink said, “trying to figure this place out.”

Thunder, the Broncos mascot, wants his frazzled orange-and-gray ponytail.

His mom has a tattoo that reads, “Son.” He is fluent in languages only he speaks.

“What makes me unique? I am Miguel Jimenez. I am me. That is it. You know?” Jimenez told The Post after exiting the scoring tent after the third round. “I don’t worry about the opinions. I am in and out the same way.”

Jimenez is his own man. Authentic and unapologetic. He inhales life. And smoke. As he prepared for a shot on the par-4 13th, he puffed a stogie to take the edge off. A birdie and a No. 1 finger wag followed after draining a putt. Seeking his fourth major title after, Jimenez went on a Saturday run.

And his streaks are always a burst of joy. He delivered five birdies and eagled the third hole.

“I played some really good holes, then I played some holes where that����ap not me, you know?” Jimenez said. “Today I had a few birdies, but way too many bogeys. Way too many.”

There were five in all. The golf course bit back with wind and rain. Jimenez left his approach a little chunky on the 18th hole as he gave back a pair of strokes over the final two holes. It left Jimenez irritated despite shooting a 68, his best round in the tournament. That left him tied for sixth, five shots off the lead at 3-under par.

There is no shame in that number.

The Broadmoor course belongs to the past. Want a smooth ride? Rent a pedal boat to drift across Lake Cheyenne, a long drive from the 18th green. The tall rough and devilish greens demand golfers buckle up. The U.S. Senior Open, especially this one, is a scramble.

Jimenez symbolized several golfers on the tournament’s third day. He exited agitated and delighted.

He has forever been comfortable in his own skin. But his personality and style mask a fiery competitor. The 61-year-old from Malaga, Spain, has won four tournaments this season and already has a spot next year in The Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass.

He has been on a heater that has nothing to do with his cigars. It raised the obvious question: How many strokes can he realistically make up to chase down the three-pack of Mark Hensby, Stewart Cink and Padraig Harrington tied at 8-under?

“I had the ball in play and some short putts. Then I couldn’t do anything on 18. I felt good (after last week). But I was tired,” Jimenez said. “I don’t know what will happen (Sunday). I don’t know what it will take. It����ap not always up to you.”

Perhaps no one has more fun on the course than Jimenez. He plays with energy befitting a man known to go full Sean Payton and knock back a couple of morning espressos.

And Jimenez on the driving range is a fascinating watch. He is part Shakira, part yoga instructor. Iron in hand, he stretches his arms above his head. Then he leans forward like a man looking over a cliff, balancing on a club to thwart gravity.

Toe touches and hula hoop-like hip and knee swivels come next before he even thinks of addressing a golf ball. Jimenez operates at his own pace. Never rushed. Always intentional.

“Many years ago, I started doing it. Why? It has worked for me,” said Jimenez, who has 17 career victories on the 50-and-over tour. “That is not the real stretch, though. The real stretch happens in the gym in the morning. What you see (on range) is the easy part.”

Jimenez has earned more than $9 million playing on the PGA and European tours and in Asia. He has been a member of two victorious Ryder Cup teams. The remarkable journey began when his brother introduced him to golf. He became a caddy and was eventually drawn to play at the age of 15.

Along the way, he picked up the nickname “The Mechanic.” Like most things with Jimenez, the explanation is layered. He is deliberate on the course, fixing parts of his game. But there was also a time he worked on cars. That is hard to do now with his current fleet, which includes a prized Ferrari.

Golf is his life. But his life is not only about golf. He enjoys good food and a spicy cigar. But don’t let the long hair and acquired tastes fool you. What makes him interesting is not just a bold glass of wine, but his ability to win.

“It was one of those days where I battled back. You are playing good, but then some holes happen that are hard to explain. I am confident,” Jimenez said. “But, I will have to play solid and make no mistakes.”

For at least two decades, a constant debate has ebbed and flowed across the shores of professional golf over the long putter. In 2013, the USGA announced a ban on “anchoring” — the act of pinning the club against one’s body while putting. But the usage of that longer short-club has persisted, and Bjorn begrudgingly made a switch from a shorter stick, hoping to extend a career that had never seen a major win.

There’ve been moments in recent years, though, where it’s felt too much for the longtime Danish professional. He second-guessed himself, constantly, with short-game questions rattling in the back of his head.

Should I go back to the short one? Should I try it?

“Middle of last year, I kind of made the decision — I’m 54 years old,” Bjorn recounted on Saturday. “I’m just going to try and not have that stress in my life, and try to enjoy the last few years I have where I can play and be competitive.”

For three days at the Broadmoor Golf Club, he’s wielded one of the more unorthodox putting techniques in the field, his left hand gently grasping a long putter as his right maneuvers farther down the shaft. Traditionally, it’s a choice that . But on Saturday, Bjorn’s broom-like sweeping putts shot him up to second in the field in the U.S. Senior Open at 7-under par, a mere stroke behind the triumvirate of Mark Hensby, Padraig Harrington and Stewart Cink.

Quietly, Bjorn positioned himself near the top of the pack before the weekend, despite not running with that top group. And after six timely birdies Saturday — including three in his final six holes — he’s within striking distance of the first major win of his career in Sunday’s championship round.

Bjorn downplayed that significance when asked after his round Saturday.

“Victories come to you, and if it’s tomorrow, great,” Bjorn said. “If it’s not, then there’s another major in a few weeks, and then we’ll try again.”

Sunday, though, presents a prime opportunity to claim a crown in Colorado, after Bjorn worked his way up the leaderboard to step directly on the top group’s heels. Cink and Harrington, the two buddies who’ve fed off one another all week, threatened to pull away from the pack for stretches on the first nine. But Hensby — no TV camera crews close enough to bother him on this day — nailed a key eagle on the ninth hole to keep even.

It’s a chummy top group overall, with the Australian Hensby appearing to fit right in with longtime competitors Cink and Harrington. After a brief half-hour weather delay early, the group briefly forgot who was up on the tee because “we’d all made so many birdies,” Cink smiled.

“It’s only right it’s a dogfight,” said Cink, who shot a 68 Saturday. “There’s some holes out there that can produce all kinds of scores. So I’m sure tomorrow we’re going to have quite a bit of ups and downs, all of us, and in the end, somebody’s going to have to stick their neck out front.

“I would love for that to be me.”

The 6-foot-4 Cink nailed one of the most impressive shots of the day, throwing up a fist-pump and sending the crowd abuzz after looping in a chip from the fringe on the sixth hole. As Harrington fell behind briefly on the back nine with a double-bogey on the 12th, though, the Irishman stole the last bit of momentum on the day.

After a tee shot that nearly fell beyond the ropes on the 18th hole, Harrington put himself back in position for a chip-shot birdie on a par-4 — and somehow nailed a heater from beyond the green, grinning ear-to-ear as the crowd roared.

“There’s a buzz out there,” Harrington said. “There’s a great atmosphere. It was special to hole out on the 18th.”

The final round of the Senior Open will kick off at 7 a.m. Sunday, with the Harrington-Cink-Hensby group teeing off at 8:50. But after they all finished in a three-way tie for the second day in a row, Harrington joked to his group-mates they could’ve all taken Saturday off and skipped right to Sunday.

“That’s why we do it,” Harrington said of the intrigue heading into the final round. “And that’s why we play the game, at this stage of our life.”

“We still like the idea of competing and hitting great shots,” he continued. “In some ways, when you’re playing out here on the Seniors, you’re reliving your past glories.”

Player-coach: When Andrew Sapp hits the road this summer on the recruiting trail, he’ll have a pretty good sell for junior golfers to play in the Big Ten.

Typically, the Purdue Boilermakers’ head golf coach only has time to play about three tournaments a summer, given necessary efforts to go scout and recruit players to his program. But he’s looked like a well-seasoned pro through three days at The Broadmoor, first making Friday’s cut at the Senior Open and then ending Saturday standing tied for 19th and 2-over.

“Overall, can’t complain too much,” Sapp grinned. “This isn’t my day job, so.”

His phone has been lighting up, Sapp said, with texts from current and former Purdue players as the former Michigan and UNC head coach tackles one of the toughest major courses across the country.

“I can definitely empathize with my players,” Sapp said, “because when you’re under the gun and you’re feeling the stress of a heated round in difficult conditions, I can definitely feel for them. So, I kind of understand what they go through very well.”

Locals: No native Coloradans are in serious contention for the Senior Open crown on their home turf, but those who made the cut are still holding their own. Denver-born Matt Gogel shot a 70 Saturday to remain at 1-over, and Brandt Jobe has put on an impressive comeback from injuries in sitting at 4-over. Shane Bertsch, who lives in Parker, shot a 72 to end the day at 5-over.

Matt Gogel had Google Earth. And some yardage books.

On Wednesday of last week, as he recalled, the 54-year-old got a call summoning him to Colorado for the U.S. Senior Open. He was the runner-up at Shadow Ridge Country Club at a qualifier in Arizona in late May. Not good enough to crack the initial field of 156 at the Senior Open. But good enough, ultimately, that Gogel felt he had a “pretty good shot” he’d be invited to replace a participant as an alternate.

That invite came eight days before the start of play at the Broadmoor Golf Club. And it came to replace Fred Couples, winner of the 1992 Masters and once the top-ranked golfer in the world.

“You don’t want to miss out on any tournament at our age,” Gogel recalled. “A U.S. Open, it’s our national championship.”

Aside from the rather high-profile name he’d be replacing, this wasn’t anything new to Gogel. He’s been “living on the edge” of the 2025 Champions Tour, he put it. And he entered the field at The Broadmoor as a pitch-dark horse with one top-10 finish in 10 Champions Tour events. He’d never made the initial cut in two previous Senior Opens in 2020 and 2022.

Through two days in ’25, though, Gogel has positioned himself squarely in the middle of the pack, shooting a 68 Thursday and 73 Friday to sit at 1-over par and crack his first cut at a Senior Open. And as a slew of competitors have taken to discussing specific angles or degrees of elevation in trying to solve the equation that is The Broadmoor, Gogel’s kept it rather simple.

His game? He knows his misses.

“I kept it below the hole, which you have to do,” Gogel said Thursday. “There’s really no mystery out here, other than — it’s really hard to put the ball where you want it, with altitude on severe sloped greens. Today worked out pretty well.”

Born in Denver before growing up in Kansas, he’ll have a chance Saturday and Sunday to continue authoring a fascinating run.

Bubbling: As the field slims from an initial 156 come, a wide range of top names have been left behind with a projected cut-line of 5-over par pushing into late play Friday. Angel Cabrera, a Masters winner who was reinstated to the PGA Tour in 2024 after a prison sentence for charges of domestic violence, stood to be eliminated after finishing 8-over. So did former Senior Open champions Bernhard Langher, Brad Bryant, Fred Funk and Olin Browne.

Erie native Matt Schalk stood on the outside looking in Friday as well, at 15-over. Parker’s Shane Bertsch, though, made the cut at 3-over, with former Kent Denver mainstay Brandt Jobe dangling at 5-over.

Defending champion in the balance: Seven years after he hoisted the Senior Open trophy at The Broadmoor in 2018, David Toms simply didn’t come in this week with his “A game,” he affirmed Friday.

Still, after a rough stretch of three straight bogeys to kick off his back nine Friday, Toms put himself squarely back under the projected cutline with a beautiful shot from fairway to green on the 18th, sealing a birdie that gave him a shot at a purse — and a sigh of relief.

“Obviously, you don’t get paid if you don’t play on the weekend, and makes you feel awful,” Toms said. “Feels like a failure for the week, basically. … To come back here as the defending champion on this golf course, it certainly — it would mean a lot to me to be able to at least play on the weekend.”

Unlucky number 15: The back-half Broadmoor struggles Thursday were perhaps best-documented by Padraig Harrington, who shanked a couple of shots into the rough on the 15th. But a host of competitors have had problems with ����𳦾��ھ�������������that 15th hole — a par-4 at 459 yards with a particularly lengthy distance from tee to fairway.

Harrington again bogeyed on 15 in his second round Friday, the only hole he bogeyed on the back nine. So did Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, one of the most consistent performers through two rounds. So did Paul Stankowski, one of several to break even through two rounds. The only top-ranked golfer to solve the hole Friday was Australian Scott Hend, who racked up an impressive string of three straight birdies from holes 15 through 17.

Singh continues a rollercoaster: Former Masters and PGA champion Vijay Singh made the weekend, but not without drama.

Singh started his second round on the back nine and played it 2-under par. When he made a birdie on No. 3, Singh improved to 3-under on the day and even par for the tournament. It fell apart on him from there, however, as he made four bogeys in the final six holes and hit an approach shot into the water on No. 9 to finish at 4-over.

Singh, once the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer for 32 straight weeks, struggled with the front nine both days on a course where many players have said the back provided the stiffer challenge. Singh played the front nine 7-over between the first two days — seven bogeys, a double bogey and one birdie — while playing the back 3-under.

Of course, Irwin might be a bit biased when it comes to The Broadmoor.

The former two-sport star at Colorado and three-time U.S. Open champion is back at a place he loves this week, serving as the U.S. Senior Open’s honorary tournament chair.

Irwin, 80, joked Friday he doesn’t quite know what that title means.

He certainly knows this course, however. And he knows the challenge of trying to navigate this tournament, both the PGA Tour version and on the senior tour.

“You have to drive the ball on the fairway — let’s check that box,” Irwin told reporters here as he started down the list of what makes a worthy Open challenge. “You have to put the ball on the right part of the green — check that box. You have to have great management of your game because not every shot is going to come off as planned, and not every putt is going to be as planned. The greens are very exacting. … Double-check that box.”

“This course and this tournament has met all the credentials of being a major championship. It����ap played at altitude, so you think, ‘Well, there’s going to be a lot of short irons hit.’ That may be. However, you still have to be so precise when you’re playing at altitude and playing with differentials and temperature. They did it right. It’s really hard to do.”

Irwin clearly loves this place. He’s been coming to the Broadmoor Golf Club since his high school playing days at Boulder High. He and his wife still come back to relax and beat the summer Arizona heat.

Every time he returns to Colorado, Irwin says memories come piling back in.

Of friends and family — he’s got plenty of both around the course this week. Of tournaments. Of his playing days, both golf and football, at the University of Colorado in the 1960s.

Irwin recalled Friday being hurt his sophomore football season and giving serious consideration to quitting football and focusing solely on golf, perhaps at Oklahoma State or Houston rather than in Boulder.

The interest from those schools, which had more golf pedigree? Lukewarm at best.

So he decided to stick out playing both sports at CU, became a two-time All-Big 8 defensive back on the football field and won an individual golf national championship as a senior in 1967.

He says now the competitiveness he learned playing against bigger players in football proved integral to his soaring golf accomplishments.

“That probably is what helped me (advance). Talent? Everybody has talent,” he said. “There’s not a guy that can’t hit a golf ball. That’s not it. It is, but it’s really not. It’s, ‘What do you do with it? How do you live away from home? How do you get a score that’s reasonable when you’re not playing well? How do you follow up a good round with another good round?’”

Irwin, of course, went on to pile up countless good rounds.

He won 20 PGA Tour events, including three U.S. Opens. The final of those came in 1990 at 45 years old, 11 years after his second. He won 45 times on the senior tour, a record that stood until Bernhard Langer passed him last year, including Senior U.S. Opens in 1998 and 2000. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.

He’s experienced golfing triumphs all over the world, but there’s still something special about the afternoon sun giving way to a quick Front Range thunderstorm on the East Course. Hale said he simply has “a great fondness for not only Colorado but here at the Broadmoor.”

“When I come back here, it brings up an awful lot of ‘Where it all started’ for me,” he added. “The successes that I had not just in golf, but I think in football, too, really kind of helped mold the competitive spirit, which you have to have against these guys. I mean, they’re just too good.

“If you don’t have that spirit and the belief itself, you’re not going to make it.”

Below them, Stewart Cink and Padraig Harrington could see it meant trouble.

For 17 holes, two friendly rivals had locked step-for-step in another duel in the same pairing, the 53-year-old Harrington and 52-year-old Cink’s stories intertwined. Harrington won the 2007 and ’08 British Open; Cink won in 2009. Both share a mighty long game, and a respect for that respective game. And both walked to their final hole Friday morning unwilling to give an inch, tied and pacing the early field at six-under at the U.S. Senior Open.

“It doesn’t drive you crazy whatsoever, because I thrive on it,” Cink said when asked if he was frustrated he couldn’t separate from Harrington. “We love it.”

Above them, though, thunder crackled.

Oh boy, Cink recalled thinking, we’re going to be close here.

Both, for a minute, actually considered rushing their subsequent strokes simply to beat the Colorado storm. Harrington actually did. And he wound up careening his second shot into a sand trap.

When the sky opened up not minutes later at the Broadmoor Golf Club, though, a screeching 1 p.m. alarm signaled a long stoppage of play in the second round of the Senior Open — and a long chasm between the rest of the field and the two competitors. Cink came alive down the stretch for the second day in a row, sinking five birdies in his final nine holes. Harrington spun some Irish magic from that 18th-hole bunker, chipping himself back onto the green and then burying a long putt to make par.

As fat raindrops sent onlookers scurrying for cover, the two course partners finished with respective 66 and 67 scores on the day and knotted at six-under atop the early leaderboard.

“He’s a world-class player, and he’s been doing it a long time,” Cink said of Harrington. “I would love it if we could go the distance here.”

They’ve nipped at each other’s heels now for 36 holes in Colorado Springs, just as they’ve done for decades. Cink, an Alabama native, and Harrington competed for years in the 2000s, representing their respective countries in the Ryder Cup. In 2007, Cink at the now-defunct World Match Play Championship.

And as Cink stepped into the second day of his first Senior Open, Harrington pushed an early lead Friday with a remarkable 31 on the back nine, a section of the course few entrants had been able to solve.

“I sensed that Padraig was starting to separate himself from all of us, especially me,” Cink said.

He made up ground quickly, hitting every green across his 18 holes and wielding a blazing putter. By the time Harrington dumped that second shot into the sand on the course’s ninth hole, Cink was poised to head into Saturday’s moving day as top dog.

But the two mainstays of the game are far from bitter rivals. Their families are close, Cink said. In 2019, Harrington pointed to Cink as his best course partner, saying he was somebody he’d “choose to play with.” And Cink’s final putt gave Harrington a direct template of his own, tapping in a beauty to ensure the two stayed even.

“I got a lovely read off Stewart,” Harrington said. “I don’t think I would have given it as much break, so that was nice.”

The rest of their morning group continued to lag behind, aside from 2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang, who finished the day with a score of 68 and 2-under overall. Many who hadn’t finished their 18 holes were whiplashed into action after the midday thunder cleared. Former World No. 1 Ernie Els said golfers got a text to be ready to return to the course in seven minutes.

“Put that in the equation,” said Els, who shot a 69 Friday and sits one over for the tourney. “It was a little weird.”

In the afternoon group, Australian Mark Hensby continued a torrid two-day run, ending the night Friday with two straight birdies on the 8th and 9th holes to pull even with Harrington and Cink at 6-under-par at the top of the field. After some visible frustration in his post-round presser Thursday, despite posting a 67, Hensby said Friday he’d felt thrown off the previous day by NBC Sports’ TV crew following him.

“When I’m a fast player, which I am, it’s like — I’m ready to go, and then I have to back up because they ran and stick that mic pretty close,” Hensby said Friday. “And that happened three times, so, yeah, I got a bit frustrated when my caddy had to keep telling ’em to stop it.

“But … today, we told ’em from the get-go, stay on the side, and now it was fine.”

As the field narrows for the weekend, though, Harrington and Cink have shown the most consistency through 36 holes, the road at The Broadmoor winding directly through them.

And soon enough, they could be the last ones running.

“I have a feeling,” Cink said, “that Harrington and I are going to be in it late.”

Correction (10:23 p.m. June 28): This story has been corrected to reflect that Padraig Harrington won the British Open in 2007 and ’08, and Stewart Cink won the 2009 British Open. 

His own face, though, twisted with torment.

Two hours before, as blue skies smiled on early strokes in the Springs, Hensby’s putter was golden. His demeanor, as he strolled up and down early fairways, was sunny. This was a course whose greens have tested some of the best men in this profession, but this was a man who’d faced much tougher tests in life, who’d once spent his nights sleeping Through nine holes, Hensby buried a stunning seven birdies.

And then he wiggled into his stance on the 18th hole, tapped a massive putt a �󲹾�����too off-kilter, and walked off the green rubbing the back of his hat in clear dismay.

“It’s just frustrating,” Hensby said a few minutes later. “I played like (expletive) the back nine. What else can you say?”

An early 6-under, far clearing the rest of the field, shrank to a 3-under with a couple of shanked bogeys. Hensby finished with a 67, good enough to tie for the day’s lead with Irish mainstay Padraig Harrington in a group of former Masters winners and U.S. Open champions. But Hensby walked away lamenting a few strokes he’d left on the grass, a standout first day reduced to merely a great one.

“I’m hot or cold, and that kind of sucks,” Hensby said. “Certain shots I keep hitting during rounds — it just pisses me off, so to speak. So yeah, the back nine was just kind of a bit of that.”

Forces greater than Hensby’s own unpredictability, though, were at play on grassy slopes born from the natural curve of Cheyenne. A field of 156 luminaries at the Senior Open got their first taste of a different planet Thursday, one where Earth’s gravity doesn’t quite apply, putts stopping strangely short or rolling strangely long in a cruel demonstration of Newton’s First Law. On a shot on the 9th hole, Australian golfer Stuart Appleby softly tapped a putt that trickled just past the cup — and then continued to drift a few feet beyond to kiss the rough.

Appleby waved his arm out at his ball, outstretched, as if to question its movement.

“That’s one of the unique challenges of this course with the slope — the whole thing is on a big slant,” said Stewart Cink, who tied for third Thursday at a two-under 68. “The greens, when they have moisture in them, it’s hard to predict what it does when it lands.”

That unpredictability played out most prominently on the back nine, as a variety of entrants struggled to solve both physics and several challenging holes down the stretch. Harrington noted there were a pair of par-5 holes on the front end of the course and none — with little room for conservative play — on the back half.

“There’s a huge difference between the two nines, to be honest,” Harrington said Thursday.

The three-time major champion proved a mighty challenger to Hensby’s mark Thursday. The 53-year-old Irishman is still built like a boxer, and his driver boomed and his putter whispered for 14 holes. He was squarely in position to seize the day at four under. But on the 15th, the back-nine struck.

A drive veered hard left, over the green, over the rough, deep into the forest at The Broadmoor. Harrington, his caddy, and fellow golfers Cink and Justin Leonard trampled through thickets beyond the green like a trio of senior-aged Goonies, Harrington peering helplessly into reeds and bushes before re-teeing and accepting a penalty stroke for a lost ball.

“You never feel good after you’ve lost a ball,” Harrington recounted, “so your head’s a little scrambled.”

A subsequent bogey sank his score to that eventual 67, as Harrington still received a smattering of claps from lingering fans near the 18th hole. He was pushed by group-mate Cink, who solved the final stretch as good as any other in the field, dropping in birdies on the 15th and 16th.

Being four-under as opposed to three ultimately makes little difference on Day 1 of a four-day Senior Open, as Harrington noted. But Hensby and Harrington, despite struggles on the back-end, did enough to push themselves to the front of the pack in a fascinating group chess match at The Broadmoor.

“A lot of this,” Harrington said, “is jockeying just to be in position on Sunday.”