Glenwood senior finishes 25th in 3A state golf tournament

Elijah Kelley didn’t grow up dreaming of playing on the PGA Tour. In fact, the Glenwood native didn’t consider golf to be his sport until the start of his junior year. 

“I’ve been playing golf on and off for a while, but only a couple times a year,” Kelley said. 

A senior at Glenwood Springs High School, he explained that he had considered basketball to be his main sport up until last year. 

“I got more into golf during the golf season last year, and I just realized how much I loved the game, and I found a deeper connection than I had felt with basketball or baseball or any of the other sports I used to play.”

Since then, Kelley has devoted his free time to improving his game — taking swings at a simulator near his house or competing in Colorado PGA tournaments on his own.

“I love golf because it helps me strive to be the best,” he said. “There’s no such thing as the perfect golfer. No one is ever going to shoot a perfect score. Obviously, you can shoot a low score, but there will always be something to work on, and I love that. I love being able to feel like I can always find something in my swing, short game, or putting, that I can work on and improve upon.”

After playing in more than triple the number of tournaments this season than he did in 2024, Kelley made his first appearance at the CHSAA state tournament, competing in his final two rounds of high school golf at Eagle Ranch Golf Course last week.

He played in just three tournaments as a junior, but that number jumped to 11 during his senior year.

“I think I really started to realize that it was my last time ever playing high school golf around midway through the second round,” Kelley said. “I was mostly just focused on playing some good golf, I didn’t perform exactly how I wanted to, but after I realized that, I just wanted to play my game and have fun because it was the last time I would be on the course as a high school golfer.”

After never having played Eagle Ranch before, Kelley finished 25th out of 84 individual golfers. He shot a 154 total (+10) over the two-day tournament, posting a 76 (+4) in the first round and a 78 (+6) in the second.

“An ideal score was to break 150 in my two-day total,” Kelley said. “If I would have broken 150, I would have been top 10 and I would have been happy with my finish, but that’s golf. There were some putts that could have fallen that didn’t and that’s the way golf works, some fall and some don’t. My putting is what ultimately caused me to not shoot my ideal number. Hopefully those putts will fall for me during the next tournament.”

Although Kelley only participated in 14 tournaments through his high school career — all as a part of the Basalt Longhorns golf team — the self-reliance, and the versatility that the sport creates has sparked a deep and passionate fire for golf inside of him. 

“I really like being out there solo and just playing my game and only having to rely on myself,” he started. “But I also enjoy the fact that I can play golf my whole life. Whereas if I were to try to pursue basketball, I would inevitably reach a point where it wouldn’t be athletically possible to continue to play. 

“It also doesn’t matter how good I am, because I can play with anyone. I can play with my friends or family who aren’t as serious of golfers, I can play with teammates, or I can just get out by myself.”

Even though Kelley insists it’s not about how good he is, his drive to improve keeps pushing him forward. Before finding golf, he played on a travel basketball team with the same competitive edge.

“I’m thinking about going to Arizona for a bit this winter and definitely plan on playing in a few Colorado PGA tournaments through next spring and summer,” he said. “I’d love to play in college if possible, but since I got started pretty late, I’ll have to work my way up.

“I didn’t play in a tournament until about a year and a half ago, but I’ve been talking to a couple JUCOs and Division III schools. It looks like I’ll start at one of those and hopefully transfer up depending on how I play.”

Other Garfield County finishers

48. Waylon Panter, Rifle, junior — +18 (162)

59. Brady Luetke, Basalt (Glenwood Springs), senior — +22 (166)

76. Zach Poland, Coal Ridge, senior — +34 (178)