LAUREL — Sometimes, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to hone your craft.
For Stevensville native Cory Bedell, who said that while at home he’s a 30-minute drive from the nearest driving range, that meant installing a simulator in his garage recently to work on his swing anytime year-round.
All that prep certainly didn’t hurt in capturing his third Montana State Golf Association Men’s Super Senior Amateur title in four years Saturday at Laurel Golf Club, part of the MSGA’s annual statewide Men’s Amateur Championships this weekend.
Bedell fired a final-round 74 — tying for the low round of the three-day tournament within the Super Senior Amateur division — to complete a furious late comeback as he was behind first place by four strokes entering the back nine, but rallied to go 2-over par for the day and 11-over for the weekend as he won by two strokes.
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He and Billings native Jerry Pearsall (in the Men’s Senior Amateur) were the early winners on the final day of the Amateur Championships, with the Men’s State Amateur being delayed in the afternoon by lightning in the area.
Park City’s Nathan Bailey (the head golf coach at Rocky Mountain College) and Laurel’s Liam Clancy were tied at 4-under following the conclusion of Saturday’s final round in the Amateur Championships, which was suspended prior to the playoff due to darkness. MSGA Executive Director Nick Dietzen said in a text message to The Billings Gazette and 406 MT Sports that Bailey and Clancy’s playoff would begin at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
“It was fun. That’s a great course there, and I had to come from behind,” Bedell said of his time at Laurel Golf Club. “I hit good shots, I just went with rhythm and tried to hit the ball solid. It started going straight, so I just kept doing that.”
Bozeman’s Lee Levine paced the field in the Super Senior Amateur division (for golfers 65 and older) going into Saturday, leading Bedell by a stroke as his second-round 77 was the lowest in the division Friday.
Levine’s lead grew right away as birdies on hole Nos. 5 and 8 contributed to a sizzling 35 through nine, whereas Bedell fell back with a 39 on the front. But the Stevensville native found his stride on the back nine, going bogey-free during his last half of the round with a birdie on the 12th hole to shoot his own 35, while Levine faded with a 40 on the back nine.
Bedell said that his best shot of the day came on that 12th hole, when he had about a 40-yard pitch on the par-4 with some water danger to navigate. He pinpointed his shot within a few feet of the hole, sinking the crucial birdie putt moments later.
“I just hit the ball so good,” Bedell said. “Back nine, that’s what did it. … Just want to thank the Montana State Golf Association and the Laurel Golf Club, they both put on a good tournament.”
Meanwhile, another man that’s no stranger to winning MSGA events is Pearsall, as the 2019 Montana State Senior Champion outdueled runner-up and three-time State Senior Amateur division (for golfers 55 and older) winner Bill Dunn of Missoula over three rounds to capture this weekend’s crown by four strokes.
Dunn threatened to play spoiler Saturday as he shot a division-low 70 to put the pressure on his friend Pearsall, but the former professional golfer weathered the storm and signed a 72 for his final round, with a bogey-free front nine helping his cause.
“Bill Dunn and I have known each other since we were kids,” Pearsall said. “He’s a few years younger than I am, but we’ve traveled together on USGA state team championships twice. Bill and I go back quite a ways, and so it’s always nice to see friends from the years, for sure.”
Pearsall noted that the shot that helped kickstart his final-round push resulted in his first birdie of the day on the par-4 No. 3, when he was stuck in a fairway bunker just over 90 yards from the pin. He struck his wedge shot near-perfectly and got the ball to about a foot from the hole, setting up a simple tap-in.
A Billings Senior and Eastern Montana College (now Montana State Billings) grad, Pearsall, a former assistant pro at Lake Hills Golf and current member at Yellowstone Country Club, got a feel for how Laurel played this year with a charity scramble several weeks ago and lauded the course’s conditions throughout the weekend.
Making some memories with some good friends was an additional bonus.
“I think that’s one of the things anybody in Montana wants to do is win the state title,” Pearsall said. “Winning the state seniors is a pretty cool thing. I had really good groups to play with over the last few days, and that so much of it, is the camaraderie and getting to play with the guys.”
Email Briar Napier at briar. napier@406mtsports.com or follow him on Twitter/X at @ BriarNapier
