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It’s never been in Colin Prater’s nature to limit himself to one endeavor.
As a student at Palmer High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., he would play on the golf team in the fall, the basketball team in the winter and the baseball team in the spring. Now as a 25-year-old, he works at Doherty High School – 7 miles from Palmer – where he teaches chemistry and anatomy to 140 kids a day while also coaching girls varsity golf and boys JV basketball.
If you want to find out who Prater is as a golfer, you have to start with who he is at his day job.
“I’m sort of a teacher who is really laid back but I have super-high expectations of my students,” Prater said. “My No. 1 priority is that I want my students to love coming to my class every day. My classroom is the one where we are running around standing on desks and doing goofy things so other teachers have to shut their doors because we are being loud and having fun.”
Tournament golf calls for less tumult, but Prater brings the same positive energy to his game. Last month he dominated the Colorado Golf Association’s Match Play Championship at Blackstone Country Club, becoming the third mid-amateur in the past 16 years to win the event. His 8-and-7 drubbing of University of Colorado golfer Ross Macdonald in the 36-hole final on June 19 was one of the most lopsided matches the championship has seen, and it was indicative of how the whole week went. Prater was a co-medalist in stroke-play qualifying, and he only needed the full 18 holes once during match play, that coming in his 2-up semifinal win. He didn’t quite have a full classroom in the gallery, but he did have two grandparents, his parents, two uncles and a family friend on hand to witness the performance.
He’s also the fifth player since 1990 to have captured both the CGA Match Play and the Colorado Amateur, a tournament he won by six strokes in 2016 at Boulder Country Club while he was in college at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS).
“I won that Amateur the year I was hot,” Prater said. “I won a qualifier for the U.S. Am, then three weeks later I won the Colorado Am and then the very next week I played in the U.S. Am. So that was a crazy stretch where I was playing a lot of golf.
“This year winning the Match Play is a little more bittersweet, because I hadn’t played in anything competitively since last September. There was nothing for nine months. I was standing on the first tee on Monday morning of the tournament, and there were some nerves. I had an 8-footer for birdie on the first hole and my putter (was) shaking a little bit.”
“I didn’t know I was going to love interacting with the kids so much. My goals in life just shifted a little bit. Maybe there’s a chance in the future if I qualify for a U.S. Open or something like that, I could turn pro. But as for now, I’m super content.”
Colin Prater
Despite the lack of competitive reps and his career focus turning to teaching, Prater has found plenty of accomplishments since completing a 12-win collegiate career at Division II UCCS. He qualified for his second U.S. Amateur a year ago and went 3-0 during the Colorado Cup Matches, an annual contest between top Colorado amateurs and PGA professionals. This summer was going to be his first crack at qualifying for the U.S. Mid-Am after he recently met the age requirement, but that event has been canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I know it sounds outrageous, but I want to be one of the best amateurs to ever play in the state of Colorado,” Prater said. “What’s the easiest road as an amateur to get to the Masters? I know it’s super difficult, but I want to win a U.S. Mid-Am.”
Like many mid-amateurs in Prater’s position, his initial inclination was to turn professional.
Prater didn’t focus intently on golf until late in his high school career, finishing fifth at the Class 5A state tournament in Colorado. He didn’t have Division I scholarship offers heading into college, so he went to Colorado Mesa University where he earned national freshman-of-the-year honors and played in the Div. II NCAA Championship.
“I got a whole lot better in a short amount of time,” Prater said. “The coach there really helped me on the mental side of the game. I was thinking that I would stay at Mesa for another year and then transfer to play D-I golf somewhere.”
Ultimately, Prater chose to transfer from Colorado Mesa, and among a wide range of options was the University of Colorado, the school Prater grew up cheering for. He was set to join the team there, until UCCS coach Phil Trujillo called with an offer of a full scholarship.
Though UCCS meant remaining in Div. II, Prater enjoyed going back to his hometown.
“It was just too good of a deal for me to pass that up,” Prater said. “From that point, I had the goal of, ‘Let’s go be one of the best players in Division II.’ And I think I accomplished that goal.”
It’s hard to argue with that assessment. Prater starred for the Mountain Lions, earning All-American honors and cementing himself as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference player of the year. He won three times in each of his four years at UCCS and found a new level of consistency his senior year.
Prater finished his college career in May 2018 and shortly afterward had the opportunity to caddie for Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz in the U.S. Senior Open at the Broadmoor, Prater’s home club. He planned to turn professional after a stint as a student-teacher that fall. Everything was leading up to a move to Phoenix with his girlfriend as he aimed to go through Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in the fall of 2019 after having a year to prepare.
But a potential job opportunity did not work out as he had hoped. He began to feel like teaching was a better long-term career for him to start.
“I didn’t know I was going to love interacting with the kids so much,” Prater said. “My goals in life just shifted a little bit. Maybe there’s a chance in the future if I qualify for a U.S. Open or something like that, I could turn pro. But as for now, I’m super content.”
Being content doesn’t mean letting go of his competitiveness. It could be quite the opposite effect given his recent results.
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