From Golf Raffles to Raising Millions

Andrew Mueller on Building Colorado Under Par: From Small Leagues to $2 Million for Nonprofits

VoyageDenver recently spotlighted Colorado Under Par founder Andrew Mueller as part of its Community Highlights series — a conversation about how a simple idea grew into a platform that uses sport to serve communities. It’s a story we’re proud of, and one worth sharing.

The road to Colorado Under Par

Andrew’s path to founding a golf company wasn’t a straight line. He earned a degree in health care administration and spent the first years of his career as a health administrator, work that shaped how he thinks about service and community to this day. He later moved into finance, building a successful career in wealth management. But it was on the golf course — as an avid player himself — that he spotted a problem worth solving: plenty of people loved the game yet felt anxious about competing, unsure they belonged in organized golf.

So he set out to build something more welcoming. Colorado Under Par started small — social golf leagues designed to bring players of every level together for the love of the game, no intimidation required.

A pivot that became a purpose

Then 2020 arrived, the first season was postponed, and what could have been the end became the beginning. Rather than going quiet, the team turned the community it had built toward a cause — running a fundraiser and delivering 200 meals to frontline healthcare workers at a local hospital when it mattered most. For Andrew, whose own career began in health care, that effort hit close to home.

That pivot revealed the idea the company has been built around ever since: golf, and sport more broadly, isn’t just recreation — it’s one of the most powerful ways to bring people together around a cause. What began as a few leagues became a mission to use sport to serve.

Sport as a vehicle for impact

Over the years, that mission has produced real results. Events in the Colorado Under Par community have helped nonprofits raise more than $2 million over seven years — funding scholarships, supporting veterans, feeding families, and backing the causes Coloradans care about. Those aren’t abstract figures. They include efforts like supporting PGA HOPE, the program that brings free, adaptive golf to veterans, helping it raise funds to get more heroes off the waitlist and onto the course.

For Andrew, this is the heart of it: a tournament is fun, but a tournament tied to a cause is meaningful. That belief — that sport can be a genuine engine for good — is what continues to drive the company.

Where Colorado Under Par is today

Today, Colorado Under Par has grown from those early leagues into a platform that helps organizers list, promote, and grow their events, and helps golfers and players across Colorado discover events to play. Rooted in Colorado and continuing to expand into new sports and communities, the focus remains exactly where it started: connecting people through sport, and channeling that energy toward causes that matter.

The journey from a paused season to a community platform reflects what Andrew set out to build from the beginning — something that brings people together, supports the community, and lasts.

As featured in VoyageDenver