COLORADO SPRINGS — Matt Schalk got the first sentence out before the emotions he knew were coming arrived.
Schalk, the PGA director of golf at Colorado National in Erie, took the first swing of the 2025 Senior U.S. Open at The Broadmoor on Thursday morning. As he spent the day grinding through the opening round of the third major event on the senior tour, there was a familiar face carrying his clubs — his daughter, Hailey Schalk.
“It’s pretty special to be here, obviously with your daughter,” Schalk said before he needed a minute to gather himself. “Sorry, I can never do this. I do it every time. It’s really special.
“You’re playing a game that’s so male dominant … It’s amazing to share it with her. She keeps me grounded. She’s a big part of my success.”
The elder Schalk won the 2022 Senior PGA Professional Championship with his daughter caddying for him. She was on the bag for him last year at the Senior U.S. Open as well.
Hailey won three state titles at Holy Family with her dad as the coach. She played four years at Colorado before graduating in 2024 and now works at Castle Pines Golf Club. Her side gig as her father’s caddy during his burgeoning senior career has been quite the role reversal.
“It’s definitely a different dynamic having him on the bag for me versus me on the bag for him,” the younger Schalk said. “He’s super fiery, I’m very calm. It’s awesome, but I think we balance each other out really well.”
Matt Schalk earned his spot in this tournament by winning a qualifying event with a 3-under-par 68 at the Country Club of Colorado earlier this month. When the USGA announced tee times for the opening round, Schalk was in the first group to tee off at No. 1.
It made him a natural to take the first swing of the tournament.
“It’s amazing,” Schalk said. “At the end of the day, I’m a club professional. I go to work every day. It’s an honor to be a part of this, the history part of golf, and I was honored. I was honored to be there, had a lot of friends here, and it was really special.”
Local ‘journeyman’ Bertsch impresses: Four decades later, Shane Bertsch has kept the cup he won as a teenager, a reminder of a completely different life he could’ve lived.
He fell in love with golf at 13, after working a summer job at the Evergreen Golf Course. But this local Denver story started, first, with a journey through junior tennis as a proud victor of a USTA Intermountain Junior Tournament.
Kind of.
“I won that tournament,” Bertsch reflected Thursday, pausing for a few seconds before smirking. “Consolation.”
That consolation came because Bertsch was matched up against a kid named Andre Agassi in the first round. Brutal draw. Bertsch took one game off the future International Tennis Hall of Famer but was otherwise drubbed 6-0 and 6-1 in two sets. He decided, eventually, to focus on golf.
A long, winding career later, the self-described “journeyman” is back playing in the same mountains where he began. And the Denver native and current Parker resident authored a strong 1-under 69 through his first 18 holes at the Senior Open on Thursday. A one-time winner of the Champions tour in August 2020, Bertsch put himself in strong position to make Friday’s cut down from a field of 156 to 60.
And he’ll do it in front of his 10-week-old grandson A.J., able to pop down from Parker to Colorado Springs for his first road trip out of the house.
“He doesn’t know what’s going on,” Bertsch said. “Hopefully, someday, he’ll realize it.”
Big names struggle: Virtually every golfer who’s stood in front of a microphone under Cheyenne Mountain this week has lamented the difficulty of The Broadmoor’s slopes — the altitude, the greens, the weather — heading into this particular Senior Open.
“It’s always, maybe, one of the hardest tests,” two-time Masters champion Bernard Langher said Wednesday of the course.
The course, certainly, tested some of the biggest names in the field’s scorecards on Thursday. Gene Sauers, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour and the Senior Open champion in 2016, finished with a 75. Olin Browne, a former Senior Open winner, racked up 10 bogeys. Mike Weir, who won the 2003 Masters, ended at an 8-over 78. And in a cruel twist of fate, 2000 Masters winner Vijay Singh lost his ball in a bunker on the 13th hole, setting him back a stroke on a three-over day.
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