Webster Claims Low-Am Title at Colorado Women's Open

Years worth of hard work on and off the golf course paid off for local amateur golfer Kelsey Webster at the Colorado Women's Open at the beginning of June. Webster's history with the game of golf has had its fair share of ups and downs over that same time period, but her perseverance and positive attitude led her to a new victory recently.

Webster, a Gunbarrel resident, grew up playing golf around the Boulder Country Club and attended Fairview High School where she played on the girl's golf team. Her initial introduction into the game was through her father, Bob Webster, who she says has always loved to play and wanted to pass it on to her.

"He tried my entire life to get me into golf, but I never wanted to," she said. For much of her childhood her main love was basketball, and she played all the way until her sophomore year of high school when she decided that a future in basketball wasn't in the cards for her. However, after going to a golf camp in Arizona over the summer she met some key coaches who changed the way she thought about the game. "I'd played a little bit, played on the golf team, but hadn't taken it seriously until then," she said, noting how much of an impression the advice she received at the camp encouraged her to see where golf could take her.

The potential that the coaches in Arizona pointed out wasn't far away from becoming a reality for Webster, and her handicap dropped from 14 to 2 in the matter of a year. She started playing seriously shortly after that. "I caught the golf bug and was out there 4 hours a day, and the results started to follow," she said.

Webster spent the first three years of her college career at CU. "I grew up as a Buffs fan with the Buffs legacy. Coach Anne Kelly really took a shot on me in high school, and I am incredibly grateful to her for that and all of the opportunities that the CU program has provided me in those three years."

She also chose CU because of its proximity to home, recalling that it had been a time in her life when she wanted to stay close to family. "I have the most supportive family in the world and I'm lucky that I have such an incredible support system behind me," she said. "Their support goes into my golf game and who I am as well."

She lived at home while going to school in pursuit of a psychology degree, all the while playing golf on the CU women's team. While her golf game continued to grow, she noted how those three years were especially influential for her growth as a person and as a human. "My golf career was not as prosperous as I had thought it was going to be," she said. "Right off the bat I was faced with some things I had to power through and have made me who I am today." Even though her career had a rocky start, she handled the adversity with grace and with the help of her family and the CU coaches.

But new adventures awaited her beyond the Colorado state lines, and she set her sights on Oregon State University and the women's golf team there. Due to a canceled year of athletics during the pandemic, Webster entered her fourth year of school with two more years of eligibility to play golf. However, instead of returning to CU she decided to enter the transfer portal and check out the logistics of moving out of state for her last two years. As she was exploring, she saw OSU almost immediately in her search and remembered the strong connections she'd made with Coach Dawn Shockley at the Arizona Camp in high school.

While it hadn't been the best option three years earlier, she'd always known in the back of her head that she wanted to be part of the program at OSU, and Coach Shockley was her first phone call in the transfer process. Flash forward to present day, and Webster just wrapped up her first year at OSU. She cites it as "... the best decision I ever made."

At OSU she placed fifth in the PAC12 individually and the team finished second, which is the best they've ever finished in program history. The team made it to regionals as the #5 seed, but fell short of continuing to nationals. Webster said, "I did by far the best that I've ever done, and it's been really fun to see my game grow. Sometimes you have to make a scary move in life, but this one definitely paid off."

After ending the collegiate season on a high note, Webster was primed for success going into her sixth time playing in the Colorado Women's Open at Green Valley Ranch June 3. She'd played the same tourney in high school and didn't remember even scratching the leaderboard, but was returning this year with a completely different golf game.

Webster competed as an amateur in a field mixed of ams and pros alike. Before the tourney she'd turned to her girlfriend and said jokingly, "... hey, lets go get low-am this week," and three days later it turned out to be a much more realistic goal. Webster went 72 - 68 - 70 over three days and realized that she was in contention for the title of Low-Amateur champion after she shot 68 the second round, ending the day with a one-shot lead going into the last day. "I've always had it in the back of my mind that Am would be a cool thing to get, and I didn't think that it was really possible the first five years," she said. With that knowledge, she was motivated to chase the title on the last day of the tourney.

The victory was a full-circle moment for Webster, who said, "I kept comparing it to my senior year playing in the state tournament." She remembered being favored to place first and letting the nerves get to her, and when images of that experience came back to her four years later, she used them as motivation to hone in on her goal.

Webster finished tied for sixth in the combined field of pros and ams, and finished with the first amateur title as well. When asked where she planned to go with golf from here, she said this summer she was going to put her nose to the grindstone and give golf a shot for one more year. However, after she's done at OSU she doesn't plan to continue on as a pro.

"You have to absolutely love golf to go pro... " she said, "... and I do love golf, but I love helping people more. I would love to be a coach and get into that world." Coaching D1 someday would be something Webster would enjoy, and she plans to explore pursuing a graduate degree while assistant coaching somewhere, then seeing where those paths take her.