Colin Prater makes history at Colorado Match Play Championship
Colin Prater (L) and Ross Macdonald played a rain-soaked final (Colorado G.A. photo)
Colin Prater made history at the Colorado amateur match play tournament. Twice.
The former University of Colorado Colorado Springs PING First-Team All-American became just the fifth player in state history to win both the Colorado Amateur and the Colorado Match Play championships. Prater also became just the third mid-amateur to win the event since 2000.
Traditionally dominated by collegiates, Prater dominated the event from wire to wire. Qualifying as the No. 1 seed after shooting a 4-under 68 during Monday’s seeding round, Prater won his Round of 64 match 7&5, his Round of 32 match 2&1, his Round of 16 match 3&1, his quarterfinal match 4&3, and his semifinal match 2 up, earning his way to face University of Colorado senior Ross Macdonald in the 36-hole championship match.
Macdonald found himself in the championship match for the second time in three years. Sitting 1 down to Prater through 12 holes, Macdonald fell apart with three bogeys by the time the pair got to the 17th tee. Prater continued to draw blood with a 12-foot dagger for birdie on No. 18 to give himself a 5 up cushion as the duo made their way to the final 18.
With help from Macdonald as well as his own great play, Prater extended his lead from 1 up on the 13th tee to 7 up on the 21st tee.
Macdonald squandered away a 12-under performance on the week as he went 8-over on the final 17 holes of the match en route to an 8&7 loss.
“I was just trying to play catch-up,” Macdonald told the Colorado Golf Association. “Colin didn’t make any mistakes, so it was tough to catch him because his short game was on and he wasn’t hitting it too bad. He definitely deserved that win. He was steady. He was hitting fairways and hitting greens. When he missed a green, he had some great chips and was rolling the putter. I didn’t see him have a three-putt all day.”
Prater, a science teacher and girls high school golf coach by day is well aware of his rare feats.
“No matter what it is, it’s cool to win it. I’m super honored and super lucky to have been able to play forever. It’s kind of goofy that I never won this event when I was still playing in college. I had to wait until I got out of college and had a real full-time job in order to actually win it…This one I might cherish it a little bit more because I did it at 25.”
View results for Colorado Match Play
ABOUT THE Colorado Match Play
The CGA Match Play Championship will be played
using the PGA TOUR style match play Pod
Play system at gross scoring. This means that any
player who qualifies for the
championship will be guaranteed at least three (3)
matches in the championship at
CommonGround Golf Course. After each player is
ranked (see below), all players will be
distributed into their pod with three (3) other
players. This will yield 16 pods of four (4)
players. Each player will play all three other players
in their pod (see schedule below). The
winner of each pod will advance to the Round of 16
and a single elimination knockout
round will be played at CommonGround Golf Course.
The top 8 players will advance to
complete the championship at Colorado Golf Club in
a single elimination bracket.
Player Seeding: All 64 players will be ranked 1 – 64.
The defending champion will be
ranked #1. Exempt players will be ranked next based
on their 2020 CGA Player of the Year
points standings. The rest of the field of 64 will be
made from qualifying players that came
from an off-site qualifier. Qualifying players will be
ranked in order of their qualifying score
at their given site.
Pod Assignments/Seeding: The pods will follow the
PGA TOUR style of randomized drawing.
Once players have been seeded 1 - 64, players will
be drawn at random so that each pod
will consist of a player ranked 1 - 16 (Player 1), 17 -
32 (Player 2), 33 - 48 (Player 3) and
49 - 64 (Player 4).
Pod Play Scoring: There will be no extra holes during
the pod play portion of matches.
Scoring during pod play will be as follows: Match
Won – 1 point | Match Tied – ½ point |
Match Lost – 0 Points.
Note: If there is a tie for the pod winner, a sudden
death playoff will determine the person
advancing from that pod.
View Complete Tournament Information