When they needed a key approach shot in Saturday's title match, they seemed to get it. The same went for nearly every meaningful putt either Ryan Greer or Jack Smith stood over.
And as a result, the Knoxville duo walked away from Black Creek Club winners of the 46th Tennessee Golf Association four-ball championship, defeating the Chattanooga team of Lake Johnson and Scott Stevens 4 and 3.
Greer is a former Tennessee Tech player and was golf coach at Knoxville Webb from 2009 to 2012. The 21-year-old Smith played at Webb before moving on to the University of Tennessee, where he will be a senior next college golf season.
They defeated Chattanooga's Andrew Weathers and Signal Mountain's Mikey Feher 3 and 2 in one morning semifinal.
Johnson and Stevens, former Chattanooga Christian teammates who this past school year played their college freshman seasons at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and South Carolina, respectively, needed 20 holes to advance past Springfield's Vince Gallagher and Hendersonville's Jacob Sherlin in the other.
The winners never trailed in the final round. They took a one-hole lead when Greer rolled in a 30-foot putt on No. 3, and his birdie putt on N0. 5 had them up by two early.
"That was huge," Greer said. "We knew both of them were really good players, but also this being a course they were familiar with was an advantage. We knew getting ahead early would be very crucial."
Johnson's birdie on the par-5 No. 6 got the local pair back within one, and then both teams parred the par-3 seventh before a three-hole sequence that proved to be most pivotal in the match.
Greer birdied the par-4 No. 8, where Johnson saw his birdie putt lip out. Greer again birdied the next hole, and his team made the turn up by three holes.
With a birdie putt conceded to them on No. 10, Johnson and Stevens had a chance to trim the lead. But Smith matched them by rolling in a birdie putt that Greer said he thought was as big as any putt they made all week.
"We were up one going into 8 and I guess the momentum was on their side a little bit," Smith said. "Then what Ryan did on 8 was so big. I had a pretty big putt on 10. That was a stretch where we could've gone down or been square."
The winners parred holes Nos. 11-13, and the local duo could only match them. Smith's birdie putt on the par-5 No. 14 increased the lead to 4 up, and when Johnson and Stevens were unable to win No. 15, the match was over.
"We really didn't make any putts today at all," Johnson said. "We just didn't play well enough. They played great. In this format it's kind of hard to play catch-up."
The tournament began with 36 holes of qualifying stroke play. The round-of-16 and quarterfinal matches were Friday.
"This was really good competition," Smith said. "The second day we kind of struggled, but we played pretty well overall. We tried to make a lot of birdies. We made some good putts. We made some timely birdies. We made some timely saves. It kind of just all came together."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.