C. Paul Brown has championed Western Slope golf both on and off the course.
A graduate of Fruita Monument High School, Brown was a second-team All-Pac-10 golfer at the University of Arizona in 1979 before returning to Colorado.
In winning the Rocky Mountain Open’s overall title in 1987, he became the tournament’s only amateur champion since 1966. He’s also been low amateur in the RMO 10 times.
The president of Monument Oil Co., Brown qualified for one U.S. Amateur Championship (1979) and one U.S. Mid-Amateur (1984). He competed in the Pacific Coast Amateur five times and in the Colorado Open 10 times.
Brown also captured the Colorado West Amateur championship 13 times, and the CGA Western Chapter title five times from 1983 through ’93. He placed as high as third place in the CGA Stroke Play Championship, and was a semifinalist in the CGA Match Play.
Off the course, he served as a volunteer on the Colorado Golf Association Board of Governors for 19 years, beginning in 1981—the year he was instrumental in the formation of the CGA Western Chapter.
He volunteered as the men’s golf head coach at Grand Junction’s Colorado Mesa University in 2010. With a team of all walk-on players, he guided the Mavericks to their first NCAA Division II super regional berth in 2011. The following year, CMU returned to the super regionals.
Brown also started—and provided seed money for—the Colorado Mesa University Golf Foundation to raise money for scholarships.
“Without question, Paul is the finest amateur golfer ever in western Colorado, and one of the state’s best as well,” said CGA governor Jim Hollingsworth, a resident of the Western Slope. “To say that he dominated golf in the western part of the state for 20 years would be a gross understatement.”
