In a summer he called "up and down" for his golf game, Sport Allmond began August with a definite high.
By being low two days in a row.
The 20-year-old Dalton State College junior won the 73rd annual Brainerd Invitational by three strokes with a 13-under-par 131 at Brainerd Golf Course. With his 66 on Saturday and his 65 on Sunday, he matched each day's best score.
The Men's Metro and Chattanooga TPC champion in 2015, the summer before his senior year at Heritage High School, Allmond admitted the weekend at Brainerd was his best back-to-back rounds in a while.
Chris Hall was second overall and the 40-over champion with a 134, and Ricky Honeycutt equaled Allmond's 65 in surging to a 135 and the 39-under title with Allmond earning the overall championship.
Scott Patton won the senior division (55 and older) with an eagle on the par-5 18th hole for a 137. He was going head to head with first-day leader Johnny Pierce, who birdied that final hole to cap a 138. Pierce was four clear of a group tied for third at 142: Bret Douglas, Bob Rice and Mitch Hufstetler.
Two old friends who could have been in the senior division battled it out in the next-to-last group in the regular flight, and the 60-year-old Hall declared himself a winner even before the last group's cards were turned in.
"I was playing him," the three-time Brainerd champion said, pointing with a chuckle toward Richard Keene, "so I won."
Keene acquitted himself well also against the younger crowd with a 139, tied for eighth.
Hall shot 31 on the back nine for his 66, with birdies on Nos. 11-14 and No. 18. That last one required a putt of mere inches after he almost made an eagle roll of less than 18 feet.
Like Allmond, Hall was not aware of what Honeycutt had done in the fourth group from the end.
Allmond also did not know the target Hall provided.
"I knew what Trent (Mansfield) was doing. I was playing with him," the champion said. "And I heard about Cody Godfrey at the turn. But I didn't know anything about those other two."
Allmond essentially secured his win with birdies at holes 13, 14 and 15.
"That was the point where I finally got a little separation," he said.
Mansfield finished fourth at 136, and Godfrey tied first-day co-leader Jeff Greeson for fifth at 137 after a 66. David Watts was seventh at 138.