The Seventeenth Playing · Sept 17–21, 2026
Fort Collins · Est. 2010
Seven rounds for the Cup, from the two municipal courses you learned the game on to the championship finish at TPC Colorado on Sunday. Every game is net, so the Cup is genuinely winnable by all four. Monday adds two more rounds at Arrowhead and Fossil Trace, played as an exhibition once the trophy is settled.
This is the pinch point of the week. Arrowhead's 7:30 plus a realistic 4:45–5:00 puts you on 18 at 12:15 to 12:30. The drive to Golden is 39 minutes on C-470 to US-6. Fossil Trace is at 1:30. That leaves 20 to 35 minutes of margin, and Arrowhead reviews report 10–15 minute waits on tees when it's busy. Eat in the car, skip the 19th hole, and if you're still on the 16th at noon call the Fossil Trace shop (303-277-8750) and tell them.
Fossil Trace began a pump-station and irrigation replacement on Sept 10, 2026 and is closing one hole at a time through May 2027. In the Sept 20–26 window, hole 3 is out. Everyone is carded a gross 3 there so the closing major stays a full 18-hole card — the cell is pre-filled and shaded, and you can type over it if the shop has a different hole closed when you arrive. Rates are discounted while the work runs.
Friday's 2:30 at Highland Meadows plus 4:30 of golf puts you on the 18th tee around 7:00, with sunset at 7:03 and usable light until about 7:30. Saturday's 1:50 at RainDance has more room but RainDance is a big property with long green-to-tee transfers. Play ready golf both afternoons, and on Friday get the group away from the turn quickly.
Windsor checkout, 31 minutes to Berthoud for 8:00, off the course around 12:45, then 58 miles / about 1h20 down to Littleton. It's the only day you play with everything you own in the trunk, so do the packing the night before rather than at 6:45 in a parking lot.
TPC Colorado publishes no public rate (expect ~$255 with cart) and Bella Ridge uses airline-style dynamic pricing with no rack rate. RainDance is posted at $180 Fri–Sun including cart and range balls. Fort Collins munis run $43–$54, Highland Meadows $99–$109, Arrowhead roughly $135–$280 depending on how you book it, and Fossil Trace is discounted while the irrigation work runs.
Each round pays out twice. The Card rewards the best individual round no matter what game is on. The Game rewards whoever actually wins the format that day. You can lose the match and still bank points for playing well.
Course Handicap is recomputed for every course and tee: Index × Slope/113 + (Rating − Par). Full handicap for all net and Stableford scoring. Match play runs off the low man, and four-ball uses the standard 90% allowance.
Mixed tees. Mike and Stan play a box up on seven of the nine rounds. No extra adjustment is applied and none is needed — the (Rating − Par) term is exactly what makes handicaps from different tees comparable, which is why the 2020 handicap revision added it. Shorter tee, lower rating, fewer strokes. You can move any player to any tee on that round's scorecard.
Bailey plays to a plus figure on most of these courses — he gives a stroke back on the easiest holes rather than receiving any. The cards below mark it.
There are exactly three ways to split four players, and each one gets a team round: Matt & Bailey at Collindale, Matt & Stan at Bella Ridge, Matt & Mike at Highland Meadows. Nobody can claim a soft draw.
Wolf on Friday afternoon shuffles the alliances again inside a single round, and Monday's round-robin at Arrowhead does the same for whoever is in the Monday field.
Every course is set between 6,400 and 6,800 yards, which at 4,800–6,100 feet plays roughly 6,000–6,300 at sea level. Two courses can't hit the window cleanly: TPC's Gold is 6,875 (the next set down is 6,141, which would waste the course) and RainDance needs its Blue/White combo at 6,563 to land in range at all.
Matt and Bailey play 6,500–6,800 all week. Mike and Stan move up to roughly 6,200–6,400 — Blue at SouthRidge, White at Collindale, Bella Ridge and RainDance, Arrowhead at Arrowhead, Blue at TPC and Fossil Trace. Highland Meadows has nothing between Blue 6,562 and White 6,059, so all four play Blue there both rounds.
You can move any player to any tee on that round's scorecard and every handicap recomputes.
Six formats over nine rounds, none repeated back to back. Seven of those rounds decide the Cup; Monday's two are played under the same rules but scored on their own. Tap any format below, or the green tag on any round card, for the full rules and how it pays.
If the Cup is level after TPC Colorado: most points in the Championship itself, then lowest single net round of the week, then a putt-off on the TPC practice green before anyone leaves for Littleton. Sudden death, one ball each, closest wins. Settle it Sunday — Stan drives home after the game, so there is no Monday to fall back on.
Runs inside every round on net scores, carryovers within the round only, everything resets at the next first tee. The page computes it — it's a separate purse and pays nothing toward the Cup.
One of each per round, on holes picked for being worth the trip: the 143-yard all-carry 4th at Highland Meadows, the island 12th at RainDance, the downhill 13th through the rocks at Arrowhead, the 96-yard 5th at Fossil Trace, and the 773-yard 13th at TPC. Marked on every round card below.
Most balls surrendered to the arroyos, reservoirs and native grass over five days. Carried, visibly, on the flight home. RainDance and Highland Meadows will decide this.