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(photo: Mike Brockie, Courtesy Cascades Golf Course)

By Gary Kalahar
JTV Sports

Mike Brockie didn’t spend much time getting ready for the season-opening Spring Thaw golf tournament. And apparently he didn’t need to.

With limited practice and not getting in his first 18-hole round until six days before the tournament, Brockie still walked away with the Spring Thaw title Sunday at soggy Cascades Golf Course. Brockie, on top by two strokes after Saturday’s first round, never surrendered the lead while shooting a 2-over-par 74 for an even-par 144 total. Greg Zeller and Noah Schneider tied for second at 146.

Brockie said he felt surprisingly good about his game a week ago after his first full round.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow, what’s going on?’” he said.

That sentiment might be shared by a lot of Brockie’s competitors who are wondering whether Jackson’s dominant golfer of this decade is ever going to slow down. Perhaps they shouldn’t hold their breath. The 46-year-old Brockie, winner of 15 major local titles since 2010 (and 19 overall) and the Player of the Year six of the last seven years, has long been known as one of the city’s biggest hitters. That doesn’t look to be changing.

“I’ve never hit my driver as well as I did Saturday,” Brockie said about his opening-round 2-under 70. “I’ve never looked up and seen my ball going so far and straight that many times. I think I missed one drive. I missed five putts inside six feet. So that could have been a really good round. When I can keep my driver in play, it really sets me up.”

 In that first round, Brockie birdied five of the first seven holes and was 3 under par through 10.

Chilly temperatures and on-and-off rain (mostly on) did not deter Brockie in the final round.

 “The temperature never bothers me,” he said. “I would rather play in cooler weather. I like playing in this stuff. A lot of people don’t. If you mentally prepare yourself, you cut the field in half. If you let (bad weather) bother you, it makes it that much more miserable.”

Brockie said the mental approach is more important than any changes he makes in his game when the conditions turn nasty.

“I flight the ball low for better distance control, but that’s about all I do different,” he said.

Brockie is the third player to win the Spring Thaw at least four times, joining Mark Kurzynowski and six-time champion Shane Clark. Brockie also tied Clark’s record with his 15th top-five finish in the tournament.

One over par through six holes, Brockie took control of this one around the turn with a birdie on No. 7, an eight-foot par-saving putt on No. 8 and back-to-back birdies from the 30-foot range on Nos. 9 and 10.

“If I don’t make that putt on 8, I could have been looking at over-par at the turn, and all of a sudden I’m 2 under after 10,” he said.

Only because Brockie made bogeys on four of the next seven holes did the margin end up as close as it did. The normally aggressive Brockie played it safe with irons off the tee to stay short of the water hazards on the 15th and 17th.

“On a day like this, the only thing you’re fighting is par,” Brockie said. “That was my goal. And I was there. But I lost energy. When it’s wet like that and these conditions, it’s long.”

Schneider, the defending champion, shot the only sub-par score of the second round, a 71 that started with a birdie and then 12 consecutive pars before his first bogey on No. 14. He birdied two of the last four to pull into a tie for second with Zeller, another former champion (2014), who shot back-to-back 73s.

Pete Walz was fourth at 148. Tim Pickering and Dylan Eddy, who both entered the final round two strokes behind Brockie and in the final pairing, couldn’t mount a charge in their bids for a first major local title. Pickering was fifth at 149, and Eddy was a stroke back in a tie for sixth with Joe Marzano and Henry Hitt.

Jackson High School senior Justin Dods won the first flight with a 160, a stroke in front of Denny Schwarze. Chad Wrona’s 167 topped the second flight, with Kenzie Brockie a stroke behind.

SPRING THAW FINAL RESULTS

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