Big Break Winner Qualifies Into Avenel

I followed little of The Golf Channel's first Big Break series, so the name Justin Peters didn't mean much when I read this account in the Washington Post of a Booz-Allen qualifier at Little Bennett:

Last year, Justin Peters bogeyed the final hole in his qualifying round and missed by one stroke a playoff that might have landed him in the Booz Allen Classic. Determined to avoid a repeat yesterday, Peters shot a course record-tying 7-under-par 65 at Little Bennett in Clarksburg to win medalist honors....

Little Bennett is a superb but daunting mountain course, starting with an elevated first tee that shoots you over a startling forced carry onto a fairway pointing sideways. I had no business playing there about eight years ago, early in my hacker career. I should go back now and lower my course average of about 140.

Back to Peters,if you think only Phil Mickleson has amazing golf adventures, you're wrong:

Early on, the record did not appear to be within Peters's reach. At No. 5, a 516-yard par 5, Peters pushed his tee shot to the right and behind some trees. With no opening, he punched out backward, only to have his ball land in a fairway bunker 300 yards from the green. From the sand trap, Peters hit a 9-iron to 130 yards and was able to get up and down from there by hitting to 15 feet and making his par putt to cap an adventurous but ultimately benign hole.

Tell you what, this is more amazing, taken from The Golf Channel's bio of Peters:

Justin is a risk taker. He had enough of a dead-end job in telemarketing septic tank products and decided to charge a $17,500 entry fee on his credit card for a golf tour in Florida, hoping to play well enough to pay off the debt with winnings. Having battled adversity with the loss of his father to suicide, Justin and his daughter live with his mother (his hero) to get by....Justin lives by the motto of the late basketball coach, Jim Valvano, "Don’t give up, don’t ever give up."