The winner said he had no clue what his birdie on the final hole of regulation meant.
In the immediate aftermath, Noah Tullos said he hoped it qualified him for a consolation prize.
Instead it put him in a playoff, where Tullos outlasted D.J. Godoy and Austin Harmon to win the Maumelle Classic at Maumelle Country Club on Sunday.
"I had no idea what it meant," Tullos said. "I was just trying finish strong for the audience."
At least 100 club members and players had gathered around the 18th green.
Tullos, a sophomore at UALR, finished regulation at 1-over par, and unwittingly took advantage of late struggles by Harmon.
Harmon, a sophomore at Central Baptist College in Conway, was at 2-under par through 15 holes, but double bogeyed No. 16 to fall back to even.
Then his birdie at 17 left him at 1-under, with a 2-stroke lead.
Harmon hit several big hooks on the back nine, and later said they were caused by a grip made sweaty from high humidity and a temperature that peaked at 96 degrees. The most mistimed of the round came at 18, when his 3-wood bounced off a condominium far to the left and out of bounds. He teed off again with an iron, but the damage was done. His double bogey put him in the playoff with Tullos and Godoy."
"I had to grip the club a little harder to keep my right hand from slipping," Harmon said. "It worked a couple of times, but at 18 it didn't."
"I was really fortunate that they had some trouble behind me," Tullos said. "Before that, I didn't think I had a chance. He [Harmon] is a great player, and I thought he was going to bring it home."
Tullos, Harmon, and Godoy started their playoff at No. 1, a 404-yard par-4. Tullos and Harmon advanced with pars, but Godoy, a freshman at Arkansas Tech, bogeyed to settle for a third-place finish.
On the par-5 second hole, tee shots from Tullos and Harmon each landed in the fairway, but Harmon's second shot -- from 285 yards -- bounced off a mound toward a small lake to the right near the green, hit a cart path and bounced into 6 inches of water, less than a foot from dry ground. He took a penalty drop, and eventually bogeyed.
"I really hit that shot pretty well," Harmon said. "I was trying to draw it, and I just drew it a little too much. It wasn't a bad shot. I just got a little unlucky."
"I didn't think there was any way he was going in the water," Tullos said. "I thought I was going to have to birdie just to keep playing."
Tullos' second shot at No. 2 stopped within 10 yards of the green. He pitched to 4 feet and birdied for victory.
Second-round leader Tyler Reynolds started Sunday with a two-shot lead but shot an 8-over 80 to finish at 221, four shots out of the playoff in 10th.
Tullos, of Paragould, won the Class AAAAA State High School Golf Championship and his club championship at Paragould Country Club in 2012.
"This is the probably the biggest tournament I've ever won," Tullos said. "No, wait. It is. The is the best."
Sports on 07/28/2014