Colorado Buffaloes Golf Camp

Coach Anne Kelly, Women's Golf

It’s no coincidence that Colorado’s climb as one of the top programs in the region has coincided with the hiring of Anne Kelly as its second head coach in 1997.

In her eighth season as head coach of the Colorado women’s golf team, Kelly has brought a perspective colored by success on both the collegiate and professional level to the program in its 11th year of existence.

Kelly returned to her native Colorado from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she filled head coaching duties for one-and-a-half years. Prior to her work at UNC-Greensboro, she spent five years (1991-96) as a teaching professional at Silverbell Golf Course in Tucson, Ariz., where she earned PGA Class A status, a position which followed a six-year stint (1984-1990) on the LPGA Tour.

During her six seasons on the women’s tour, Kelly won a Women’s professional Golf Tour event in Phoenix in 1991. She fired a career low round of 69 at the 1989 McDonald’s Championship and her career best finishes included several top-20 finishes. Her professional career culminated in a career low scoring average of 74.63 in 1990.

Kelly sparkled as a collegiate golfer, earning four letters for head coach Fred Warren and the Texas Christian University women’s golf team. She was a member of the Horned Frogs’ 1983 NCAA Championship team, and, all told, won 25 tournament team titles during her four-year career from 1979-1983. She was named the team’s most valuable player in 1980 and won TCU’s Dutch Meyer Award, which recognizes the school’s outstanding student-athletes, in 1983. She also tied for top individual honors in the San Jose State Lady Spartan Classic in 1982. Her 1983 NCAA Championship team was inducted into the TCU Hall of Fame in October.

"I love coaching because it allows me to combine my competitive experience and teaching experience into one job," Kelly says. "All of my different experiences in golf help me relate to players in whatever situation they might encounter."

At UNC-Greensboro, Kelly was named the 1997 Big South Conference Coach of the Year after the team won two tournaments and set a school single-round scoring record (299). She coached UNCG’s Becky Morgan to five individual tournament titles and second-team all-America standing on the year and, under Kelly’s tutelage, Morgan finished 10th individually at the 1997 NCAA Championships and also earned GTE Academic All-America honors. Morgan is now in her second year as an LPGA and European tour member.

In her first year at Colorado, Kelly led the Buffaloes to a then-school record 81.30 stroke average, setting her imprint on a team which sparkled with promise. Under her guidance, Colorado also placed a conference-best five student-athletes on the first-team academic all-Big 12 squad.

In her second season, the Buffs rewrote 17 individual and team school records and the team shaved four strokes off its average from the year before, improving for the fifth-straight season.

Colorado had a program-best nine top-10 tournament finishes in Kelly’s third season. The Buffs finished a school-record second in their own MountainView Collegiate Invitational in Phoenix, falling just six strokes shy of the program’s first tournament title. She had four players named to the academic all-conference teams and senior Nicole Cavarra graduated summa cum laude and the top student in the College of Business.

Her fourth season capped off the most successful in the program’s history and culminated in the program’s first-ever tournament win at the MountainView Collegiate in Tucson. A pair of team and nine individual records were tied or bettered during the 2000-01 campaign as the team’s per-stroke average dipped below 80 for the first time, with both feats being duplicated a year later, for as good as the 2001 season was, 2002 was even better and culminated in Erin Kerr advancing to the NCAA West Regionals in Stanford, Calif., where she nearly became the first CU player to advance to the NCAA Championships, but fell three strokes shy of the benchmark.

A year ago Kelly tutored one of the youngest teams in her tenure to one of the strongest fall efforts in program history (307.6), including an opening round 288, just two strokes shy of the school record.

When Kelly arrived following the 1997 season, CU’s team average was 331.13. It took six seasons to slice 20 strokes off the team average, to a program best 310.8 following the 2003 campaign.

In the classroom she has mentored 21 academic all-conference selections and three NGCA All-American Scholar Team members in Michelle Thomas (1999), Lynn Ann Moretto (2002) Maria Persson-Gulda (2004, 2005).

Born May 15, 1961, in Aspen, Colo., Kelly graduated from TCU in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in business communications. She prepped at Santa Rita High School in Tucson, Ariz.