At age 28, Calli Ringsby isn’t very far removed from the college golfers who she beat with some regularity last month at the 109th CGA Women’s Match Play Championship.
But in other ways, it seems like an eternity ago that Ringsby herself was a college golfer at Stanford. After all, since those days, she spent two or three years barely touching a club before gradually building back her love of the game.
And in June, more than a decade removed from sweeping the CGA’s major junior girls titles in 2012 and winning the 5A girls state high school individual title the next year, Ringsby recorded arguably her biggest victory as a golfer. She held off a furious rally by Kaylee Chen of the Club at Inverness — and New Mexico State — to win the 36-hole title match at the Women’s Match Play 2 up at Lakewood Country Club.
The victory makes the golfer from CommonGround GC the oldest winner of the CGA Women’s Match Play since now-Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton earned the 2004 title in her 40s.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t take a little bit of pride in playing against the college kids,” Ringsby said. “It’s hard to compete against them because things like their short game is dialed in, whereas if you’re not practicing certain chips all the time, they get a lot harder in competition. I enjoy playing against the college kids and it’s super fun. I definitely take some pride in being the mid-am — and showing that we’ve still got it (laugh) — at this old age.”
Ringsby prevailed despite playing in her first tournament of the year — after being out of action for seven months following a hand injury suffered while playing golf in September — and averaging about one round of golf a week. These days, she devotes much of her time to her job heading product organization at SwingU, a golf app.
“It means a ton” to claim this title, Ringsby said. “I’m super excited. It definitely hasn’t yet soaked in. To be able to compete with all these great players — lots of college players … To be able to come out on top is a great accomplishment. I feel like I’m in the second wave of my career, and winning this is also pretty cool. It’s a new era. Things are obviously different in my life. Golf isn’t my No. 1 priority, but it’s great to be able to compete. To get the win is super special.”
Perhaps the fact that it didn’t come easy in the final match made it all the more so.
Ringsby led Chen — a fellow Cherry Creek High School grad and the 2022 girls Player of the Year in Colorado — 6 up through 25 holes and 5 up after sinking a 9-foot birdie putt on the 29th hole. But, as it turned out, things were far from over.
Chen won the next three holes — and five of the next six — to force the match to the 18th hole, where she was 1 down. A couple of birdies by Chen and a couple of bogeys by Ringsby led to the run. And on No. 17 — following a brief lightning delay — both players hit their tee shots into the water, but Ringsby did it twice, leading to a hole concession.
“I was just on a role,” the 20-year-old Chen said.
But on the par-4 18th, where limbs of a large tree pose big problems to tee shots that stray right, Chen’s ball ended up in the right rough. Her second shot ricocheted off the tree, and it took her four to get on the green. Meanwhile, Ringsby drove into the left rough and hit a 139-yard approach with a pitching wedge to the center of the green. A two-putt par from there was good for the victory.
“I didn’t give up,” Chen said. “That’s the last thing I think anyone should ever do. I knew it wasn’t me, my game; I was exhausted. I played (eight rounds of golf from Sunday through Friday, including 36 holes each on Thursday and Friday). I came to an acceptance that it wasn’t my ‘A’ game and I had to play with what I had today. But anything can happen.
“I just went into the second 18 with a different mindset. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t tired.”
Ringsby — who had her mom Joanna caddying for her at Lakewood CC — also played quite a bit of golf over the course of six days. But she had the benefit, as the top seed, of receiving a bye in the semifinals, thus only having to play 18 holes on Thursday. (Since 24 players — rather than a full field of 32 — participated in the Women’s Match Play, only six players advanced to the quarterfinals.)
“I still felt good” despite losing her big lead, Ringsby said. “I felt like I was hitting good shots. She started making some birdies. I was hanging in there. I had a couple three-putts that gave away some holes. I didn’t feel like I was necessarily doing anything; she just kind of charged back. It’s such a long day that that tends to happen. Someone gets a little hot; someone gets a little cold. That’s kind of how it went.
“You’ve just go to stay in the present moment and see if you can win the hole in front of you and not think too much about, ‘Is this lead slipping away?’ Obviously it feels worse when we get to hole 18 and I was 1 up at that point, having been just six holes ago 5 up. But you try not to think about it.”
It was tough for Chen that her comeback fell just short. But it certainly gave her some satisfaction that she didn’t go down without plenty of fight.
“I can’t say that I’m not disappointed, but I did give it a run and tried my hardest,” she said. “I was also at a little disadvantage too because I didn’t get a bye (in the semifinals like Ringsby did). But I had a lot of fun. And this showed me how far I can take my game. I feel really good even though I couldn’t get it done today.”
Meanwhile, the Women’s Match Play proved another satisfying way for Ringsby to scratch her competitive itch.
“The impetus for (her return to competitive golf) is it’s a great way to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone. I love to compete,” she said. “It engages a different part of my brain that I don’t get to use on a daily basis sitting at a desk.”
Asked if she burned out on golf for a while after college, Ringsby said, “Definitely. I didn’t have a very good college career. I struggled mentally and the game became a little bit less fun for me. I wanted to take a step back and explore the other aspects of life that you don’t really get to do when you’re so fully committed to being a really serious golfer. I wanted to be a normal kid to some degree for a couple of years. Then I got back to playing casually. Then I had the itch to see, ‘Do I still have it? Can I go compete?’ To test myself is why I’m competing at this point — to see what I’ve got.”
After going 5-0 in matches in this event, apparently there’s still some championship stuff there for Ringsby. Her name will now be etched on the CGA Women’s Match Play trophy along with those of Jennifer Kupcho, Paige Spiranac, Becca Huffer and Alison Whitaker, among others.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com