Jupiter’s Jude rallies to win

Final round 66 earns title by 1-shot over 54-hole leader Smith

CORAL SPRINGS — The flagstick wound up being Davey Jude’s friend after all.

Jude, 22, of Jupiter, rallied from a five-shot deficit beginning the final round to win the 86th annual Men’s Dixie Amateur championship by one stroke over third-round leader Trevor Smith.

Jude needed a little help on the final hole and got it when his 15-yard bunker shot for par hit the pin and settled one foot away for a tap-in bogey and a comefrom-behind victory over Smith. The Brunswick, Ga., resident missed a chance to tie when his 15-foot, downhill putt came up short at Heron Bay Golf Club.

“I putted great all week,” Smith said. “Today I couldn’t get anything to fall.”

Jude, who graduated from Marshall University in May and spent three years on the Thundering Herd golf team, struck the flag on his 70-yard approach shot on the first hole of Thursday’s round and watched the ball back up 15 feet. When he hit the stick on the 18th hole, he knew it put him closer to the title.

“I thanked the Lord right there,” Jude said. “I knew if it didn’t hit the flagstick on that [shot] things could have gone the other way. This [victory] is number one on top of my list.”

Jude carded 70-71-71-66-278 to top Smith (70-68-69-72-279). There was a two-way tie for third between Kyle Flexsenhar, of Bloomington, Ill., (283) and Colombia’s Pablo TorresHernandez (283).

Jude opened the final round going 8-under par through 16 holes. He birdied the first three holes, then 6, 9, 12 and 13 to seize a fourstroke lead over Smith, who promptly cut the deficit to two shots when he eagled the 573-yard, par-5 No. 14 hole.

“To be honest, that was the first time I felt any nerves the whole day,” said Jude, who made the cut in his tourney debut last year and finished 40th. “It just got down to the crunch time.

“I birdied the next hole with an 8-footer to go up by three again,” he added. “I thought if I went par, par everything would be OK, but it wound up being bogey, bogey and that made it a little bit more scary.”

Smith, 22, who had posted three consecutive under-par rounds to move to 9-under and opened up a five-stroke lead of his own heading into the final round, believed an even par-final round would be good enough.

Smith, who made his debut in the Dixie this year, graduated six days ago from the College of Coastal Georgia where he was a two-time NAIA third team All-American the past two seasons. He helped the Mariners to an 11th-place finish in the national tournament.

“It is 40 degrees in my hometown of Newnan, Georgia, so I definitely enjoyed the weather,” Smith said. “The first three rounds were great and the last round was a major struggle.

“When you go into the last round with a five-shot lead and someone tells you that you are going to lose by one, you are sitting there like, ‘Gosh are you kidding me?’ ” Smith said. “The fact that he was 8-under through 16 holes makes it sting a little less…”