PLYMOUTH – After a series of near-misses as a member, and later as a guest, Jim Gorski broke through with his first Canasawacta Country Club men’s member-guest title Iin 2009.
Along with longtime friend and partner Lee Skillin, the long-ball-hitting duo led from start to finish to outdistance the next-best team by six strokes.
Always consistent ball strikers, a few more balls stroked with the flat stick on the greens made the difference. “We finally made the putts that we have not made in the past. Plain and simple,” Gorski said. “The fairways are wide and there is not a lot of tree trouble. It comes down to who makes the most putts, and we finally made our share.”
Gorski was a runner-up a couple of times in 2003 and 2004 playing with partner Craig Cleveland. In the two years leading up to their win, the Gorski-Skillin team contended in the championship flight with a pair of top-six finishes, but were not final-round threats to take the championship.
“It came down to confidence, and we made a couple of birdies early in the first round, and that helped,” Gorski said. “Lee, on the back nine, made four or five birdies, and shooting that 64 (in the first round) was big.”
It also helped that Skillin was playing some of the best golf of his life the opening two days. He had a stretch in the second round where in played holes five through eight in five-under par. That included three birdies and an eagle on the seventh hole.
“Lee has gotten a lot better,” Gorski said. “He didn’t play on the (Norwich) golf team in high school, but since he came back to the area – around 2000 – he has played a lot more. I don’t think people realize how good a player Lee is.”
Skillin and Gorski will need to turn back a field that includes several teams not only capable of winning, but tandems that have won the tournament and won it multiple times this decade. Most recently, Bob Branham and his son Mike have two wins, and the longtime pairing of Tim Mirabito and Kenny Stewart also have two championships under their respective belts.
The tournament field is buoyed by past champions Doug Wilson and Joe Gutosky; and Mark DeMellier-George Gelsomin, not to mention strong contenders Tim Carson-Scott Seiler Sr., who have three second-place finishes in four years; Justin Bennett and Brian Loomis, who tied for second a year ago; Bryan Smith and Todd Seiler, who recently won the Bluestone Member-Guest; and the duo of Josh Morris and Bryan Boyer, who finished alone in third place a year ago.
“When you’ve been knocking on the door (of a championship), sometimes it’s hard to knock that door down,” Gorski said. “We played well, and to win by six, that almost never happens. Usually the tournament is decided by a couple strokes here and there. It was nice to get (the win) out of the way, and we can’t wait to do it again.”
Tournament action begins with the first of two shotgun starts on Thursday morning at 8 a.m., with the latter tee-off time at 1:30 p.m. After 36 holes of play, the field will be grouped into flights with the low eight team scores advancing to the championship flight.