After winning the Inspirato Colorado Open and the $100,000 first-place check on Sunday, Wil Collins gave a great deal of credit to his equipment and a figurative club.
For the past five years, Collins, 43, a former University of New Mexico golf standout, said he has learned to stop stressing so much about the game. He knows that his job as a mortgage broker is more important that what happens from tee to green.
Call it the club of nonchalance.
“That’s the best club in my bag right now,” Collins said from his office in Albuquerque. “I’ve kind of played well ever since I took this job five years ago, which is when people ask ‘why?’ Well, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to win this tournament. I don’t need to win cash in Colorado to have money to get to the next level or pay for Q School. That financial stress is tough.”
Collins can rest easy about his finances because of his prize money, the largest payout from a tournament in his career. Collins said he won approximately $35,000 after a tournament, which was his previous high.
He also won the Colorado Open in 2005, when the payout for the winner was $23,000.
Collins said he remembers 2005 all too well, when he learned a valuable lesson about humility.
He qualified for his first U.S. Open, played at Pinehurst in North Carolina. Collins didn’t make cut and finished better than just one person in the field.
“I remember I was crushed,” Collins said. “This is the most embarrassing thing in my life.”
But after gaining a different perspective, Collins responded with one of his best years as a pro, which included the Colorado Open victory.
Collins won the 72-hole tournament with remarkable consistency and a strong finish to hold off Rico Hoey of Rancho Cucamonga, California, by one stroke at Green Valley Ranch Golf Club on Sunday.
Collins, who turned pro in 2002 and was on the PGA Tour in 2009 and the then-Web.com Tour 2014-15, shot 23-under 261 for the win with rounds of 66-66-64-65.
“Of course, it feels great to know I still got it; I can still get after it,” Collins said. “That’s kind of a daily motivator. That’s why I try to keep myself in shape. Why do I go to the course instead of going fly fishing on the weekend? I kind of thought when I took the job that I would do all the things that I never did.
“I would fish and hike. I still do that more, but I can’t shake the golf thing.”
Collins’ caddies in both Colorado Open wins provide special meaning. Josh Cariveau, a UNM alumnus and a close friend, caddied for Collins during the 2005 win when Cariveau’s son, Aden, was 1 and in a stroller.
Aden, 17 years later, worked as Collins’ caddie for this tourney.
“That’s where I’m at in life now,” Collins said. “Those things mean more to me than everything else. It’s just full circle. I never understood. In the past, people were like ‘You’re already living the dream.’ I was like, ‘No. I’m not living the dream. I’m not on the PGA Tour; I’m not winning majors, that’s my dream.
“Now I get what they were saying. You’re doing what you want to do. I never got that until I was out.”
To prepare for the Colorado Open, Collins said he played money games against another former Lobo, Sam Saunders, at the Canyon Club, Ladera Golf Course and Paa-Ko Ridge.
Saunders, 30, is playing on the PGA Tour Canada this week, the Sotheby’s International Realty Canada Ontario Open. Saunders, the 2019 Colorado Open champion, finished tied for sixth, five strokes behind his friend Collins on Sunday.
Saunders said he wasn’t surprised Collins came away with the win because he was showing such promise and competitiveness during the money games leading up to the tournament.
“He’s been my mentor for the past eight years, since I was a senior in college,” Saunders said. “He’s been so helpful to me and he always seems so open to offering his insight, which is the best for me. Wil has always been so helpful, not just to me, but basically to everyone who is around. It’s hard to get help sometimes because it’s so competitive. We’ve gotten close over the years. If I wasn’t going to win that tournament, there was no one better to win than him.”
SMART LOBOS: When it comes to academics, the UNM men’s golf team is among the best in the nation. UNM is one of just nine schools in the nation to make a NCAA Regional and earn GCAA President’s Special Recognition for team GPA of 3.5 or higher.
JUNIOR AM CHAMPIONSHIP: Skyler Woods of Kirtland, N.M., shot 4-under par 68 Wednesday at Paradise Hills Golf Course to take the first-round lead in the New Mexico-West Texas Junior Amateur Championship. Woods has a two-shot lead on Peyton Jones of Roswell in the boys’ division. El Paso’s Alexis Reyes shot even-par 72 for the first-round lead, two shots better than Nahomy Labrado of El Paso,
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