Gallery by Heather Belcher
Daniels – After winning the 2020 Mountain State Golf Classic as a rising senior in high school, Shady Spring graduate and current WVU golfer Todd Duncan was faced with one of his toughest challenges in mentally overcoming a blown five-stroke lead on the back nine of last year’s Mountain State Golf Classic.
During the final round of the 2022 edition on Monday it was obvious he was going to face many of the same challenges.
A four-stroke lead at the turn had dwindled to a single stroke after close friend and 2021 champion Davey Jude, who overcame that five-stroke deficit, birdied holes 12 and 13 to compound a Duncan bogey on 13.
A year wiser, Duncan was tested and passed with flying colors.
Duncan fired a round of 68 on the Cobb Course at Glade Springs, good enough for 4-under par, winning the Mountain State Golf Classic with a total score of 13-under, besting Jude who shot 10-under across the three-day tournament.
Taking a more cautious approach and aiming to avoid bogeys, Duncan executed flawlessly birdying Nos. 3 and 4 as weather came in to play.
“That was probably the smartest round of golf I’ve ever played,” Duncan said. “The last driver I hit was on nine. I had a par 5 on twelve and still didn’t even hit driver just to keep it in play. It was just more about fairways and greens. If I had a play I’d try to take advantage of birdies but it got tight there at the end. About the middle of the back nine Davey started getting it going a little bit and started making some putts.
“I was playing a little too timid and playing away from the green and the pins. I was two-putting a lot and making a lot of pars. I made a bogey on 13 just missing it short when he made a long one. I knew he was one down with plenty of golf to play so I knew I had to get a little more aggressive than I had been but not overly aggressive because I still had the lead but tighten up a little and just trying to hit closer than I had been all day. The next hole I hit it in there to about five feet and just went from there.”
Jude’s charge toward Duncan came at almost the exact same spot it did a year ago, but Duncan responded to the former’s pair of birdies with his own.
A birdie putt on No. 14 extended the lead back to two and on 15, a hole that had given Duncan trouble the last two times he played it in the MSGC, he leaped the mental barrier with a perfect birdie putt, keeping Jude two strokes back.
“It was a little bit of a different situation this year but I whittled it down,” Jude said. “Todd – I played with him three straight days, he made lots and lots of putts and that’s what it whittled down to. He had a tough putt on 14, tough putt on 15 and made a really good putt on 18. I rolled a cold putter the last two days and that’s really the difference but Todd’s really good.”
Grasping the momentum, Duncan never let it go with pars on Nos. 16 and 17 before sinking a birdie putt on 18 to cap his stellar run.
Todd Duncan sinks his putt on 18 to clinch the 2022 Mountain State Golf Classic championship pic.twitter.com/uqBCrnToHF
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) July 18, 2022
“When I had that four-shot lead I started with lazier swings,” Duncan said. “I wasn’t really committing to the golf shot so coming down the stretch I started committing to a shot and would hit it with no regrets. I started doing that and hitting a little closer and I got the putter going at the end when I needed to.”
The win came despite an hour-long rain delay that took the group of leaders – Duncan, Jude, Patrick Smith and Chris Daniels – off the course as they approached the greens on No. 4. With storms in the forecast throughout the evening, the weather seemingly had little to no effect on the outcome of the tournament.
“I’m just glad we got to play,” Jude said. “If I had lost by default I would’ve been a little but more upset. (Duncan) had to beat me today, not Mother Nature. It didn’t change a lot but I knew there was another storm coming at 5 so I was hoping to keep playing a little faster but I’m glad we got to put all 54 holes in.”
Beckley’s Chris Daniels rounded out the top three with a composite score of 6-under for the tournament, shooting a 70 on Monday. Brett Laxton finished fourth at 4-under while Patrick Smith and Landon Perry rounded out the top five with 1-under for the event.
Dennis Vass won the senior championship with a score of 5-over.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.ocm and follow on Twitter @tjack94
For a full list of scores visit here.
