CU Athletic Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2017
- Class:
- 1948
Les Fowler was CU’s volunteer golf coach for 29 years (1948-76), assuming the role in his final year as a player, as he was a three-year letterman in the sport himself … He tied for fourth in the first Big Seven Conference meet the Buffaloes ever played in, recording a 3-over 147 score in the 1948 meet as a senior, when he served as the team’s player-coach … Following his graduation, he continued as CU’s coach on a volunteer basis, a position he would hold until turning the program over to his assistant, Mark Simpson, for the second half of the 1976-77 season … As a coach, his Buffalo teams won three conference championships, with individuals claiming three league medalist honors and two NCAA stroke play titles (Merle Backlund in 1953 and Hale Irwin in 1967) … He tutored over 125 players in all, including some of CU’s all-time greats in Dale Douglass, John Hamer, Gary Polumbus, Larry McAtee, Bill Musselman, Tom Woodard and Mark Crabtree, in addition to Backlund, Irwin and Simpson … His 1968 team won the Big Eight Conference title, CU’s last league crown in the sport, and that team also went on to finish the highest a Buff squad has to date at the NCAA Championships (eighth) … He went on to become a successful insurance executive, and was also a state senator, a state representative and Boulder city councilman in addition to being an accomplished amateur golfer … He was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1978 (the third Buff at the time to be so honored) … To this day, he is the only player in state history to have won all four major amateur championships (Match Play, Stroke Play, Senior Match Play, Senior Stroke Play) of which he won a combined 11 times … He was the CGA’s Senior Player of the Year four times (1978, 1979, 1980, 1989) … He died February 8, 2003 at the age of 78.
