There’s something to be said for athletes performing at their highest level when the game is on the line. Sometimes it’s not as much about where or how or why, as it is about when.

Brady Goodling’s sense of timing – and just a bit of a flair for the dramatic – produced a championship for his side at one of the most prestigious golf events in the area.

On Tuesday evening at the Lebanon Country Club’s 6,562-yard, par-72 test, Goodling struck local golf’s shot of the summer, as he and partner Kyle Deisher edged Mike Schmidt, Jr. and John DiGiacomo on the first sudden-death playoff hole of the championship flight’s final match to win the W.B. Sullivan Better-Ball-of-Partners tournament. Technically, ‘the shot’ came on Goodling’s second stroke on LCC’s 523-yard, par-five 15th hole.

With the match all-square, Goodling mashed a five-wood 230 yards to within eight feet below the stick. With  DiGiacomo and Schmidt scrambling to recover from the ‘game-changer’, Goodling calmly stepped up and sank the eagle putt to win the hole and the event.

Not only did Goodling’s performance under pressure end a spirited match which had been postponed nine days by a thunderstorm, he dramatically removed a huge monkey that had been living on his team’s back for three years. Goodling and Deisher had advanced to the last two championship matches at the Sullivan, but lost both.

Goodling is a member at the Lebanon Country Club, a graduate of Manheim Central High School and a senior member on the Monmouth College golf team.

 – Jeff Falk