At 27, Jennifer Kupcho is the youngest-ever inductee to the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, and no doubt the incredible list of achievements that spurred her 2024 induction will continue to grow.
Born in Littleton and raised in Westminster, Kupcho stood out among Colorado’s talented crop of amateurs while still a teenager. She dominated CWGA events, winning the 2014 Colorado Junior Stroke Play Championship, the 2016 CWGA Match Play Championship and three consecutive CWGA Stroke Play Championship titles (2015-’17), with each coming by a margin of more than a dozen strokes. At the 2016 CWGA Stroke Play Championship, Kupcho’s second round 7-under-par 65 at Denver Country Club shattered the previous course record of 68 established by World Golf Hall of Fame member Babe Didrikson Zaharias 70 years earlier. Her years of domination resulted in her receiving the CWGA’s highest honor, the President’s Award in 2017.
She continued to excel while a member of Wake Forest’s golf team. Her wire-to- wire victory at the 2018 NCAA Individual Championship—the first since 2002—highlighted an outstanding collegiate career. In 2018, she earned 2018 NCAA Player of the Year honors and became the first American to win the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the world’s top woman amateur golfer. In all, she won nine collegiate events, broke the school’s season scoring average record twice and won the 2017 Canadian Women’s Amateur.
For 34 weeks beginning in July 2018, Kupcho ranked as the No. 1 female amateur golfer in the world. She played on victorious USA Teams at the Curtis Cup, Palmer Cup and the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship—marking the country’s first win since 1998.
Kupcho finished second at the inaugural LPGA Q-Series to earn her LPGA Card in 2018 but deferred her status until after her senior season. The decision paid off as she dramatically won the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019. Despite battling a migraine during the final round, she played the last six holes five under par, and her 67 remains the lowest 18-hole score in the event’s history.
As an LPGA rookie, she recorded three top-10 finishes, including T2 at the Evian Championship. After her first professional win at the 2020 Colorado Women’s Open, she broke through in 2022 with her first LPGA title and first major win at the Chevron Championship, setting the 54-hole tournament scoring record at 16 under. In the following months, she captured the Meijer LPGA Classic and partnered with Lizette Salas to take the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational. She has represented the United States on three Solheim Cup Teams (2021, ’23 and ’24).
Tonight’s induction follows an extensive array of awards and honors recognizing Kupcho’s achievements, including a record three Colorado Golf Hall of Fame Person of the Year awards (2017, ’19, ’23), the 2019 Hale Irwin Medal, as well as her 2016 induction into the Sportswomen of Colorado Hall of Fame and being named its 2022 Sportswoman of the Year.
2023 & 2019 & 2017 Golf Person of the Year
Jennifer Kupcho
2023
This marks the third Golf Person of the Year award for the former Jefferson Academy and Wake Forest University star, her first since turning professional in 2019.
In April, she broke through for her inaugural LPGA victory—and she made it a major, no less, at the Chevron Championship at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
She then won the Meijer LPGA Classic in a playoff against her collegiate nemesis Leona Maguire and teamed up with Solheim Cup partner Lizette Salas to nail down the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational.
The only player on the LPGA Tour with three or more victories, she ranks sixth in the season-ending CME Globe Championship. The 60-player championship takes place this weekend at Tiburón Golf Club’s Gold Course in Naples, Fla. To date, she has earned $1,905,406 in 2022, seventh overall on the LPGA Tour.
2019
As a Wake Forest University student, the Westminster native became the first Colorado resident to win the NCAA Division I individual title, then represented the US on the winning teams in the Curtis Cup, Arnold Palmer Cup and World Amateur Team Championship. The top amateur woman in the world for 34 weeks, she became the first American to win the Mark McCormack Medal. She capped off her amateur career by winning the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur, finishing four shots clear of the field.
2017
The Wake Forest University freshman from Westminster resident finished sixth individually in the women’s NCAA Championship finals, qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open and cruised to the Colorado Women’s Golf Association Match Play and Stroke Play titles, with her 7-under-par 65 in round 2 of the latter breaking The Denver Country Club course record of 68 established by Babe Zaharias in 1946. She also won her first two full-field college tournaments during the fall season.
