By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Keith Dorsett won his fifth Horace Rowan Billings Amateur on Sunday at Corbin Hills, ending a string of aggravating near-misses in the major local tournaments.

Dorsett, a grandson of golfing legend A.D. Dorsett, has carved out his own legendary status with a stack of wins in the Rowan Masters and Rowan Amateur, the two biggest Rowan individual tournaments, but it had been a while since he had walked to the winner’s circle.

When Dorsett was 38 in the summer of 2017, he had swept both events, but then Nick Lyerly came on the scene and dominated those tournaments for years. The calendar churned relentlessly, Father Time shows little mercy, and Dorsett didn’t know if he’d ever taste victory in a local major again.

“It had gotten pretty irritating, getting to a lot of finals, but not being able to win,” Dorsett said. “I’m one of those guys who never plays in a golf tournament just to be playing. If I’m in it, I want to win it.”

Dorsett, the ultimate competitor, is back on top at age 45. He beat defending champion Shane Benfield 4 and 3 in a well-played final.

“Sometimes championship finals are pillow fights because of the pressure,” Benfield said. “But this wasn’t a pillow fight. This was an old-fashioned shootout.”

Dorsett played sensational golf during Sunday’s semifinal against Kevin Lentz (Dorsett won 5 and 4) as well as in the final against Benfield. Dorsett made more eagles (2) than bogeys (1) on Sunday. He eagled the 491-yard, par-5 No, 6 hole in both matches.

In the semifinal match, Dorsett made five birdies, an eagle and a bogey. In the championship match, he made four birdies, an eagle and no bogeys. He played 12-under golf for 29 holes on Sunday.

“Definitely saved my best for last,” Dorsett said. “In the matches on Friday and Saturday, I didn’t play great, but I kept grinding. Then on Sunday I found a rhythm for my swing and for the golf course, and I was putting it close a lot.”

Dorsett was seeded sixth for the event after qualifying at 1-under 71. He had three tough matches to get to the semis. He won 2 and 1 against Adam Jordan in the first round. He was down one after eight holes before he came back to eliminate Trey Swaringen in the second round. In a Saturday afternoon quarterfinal against long-driving William Little, Dorsett was down two holes at one point, but he got hot with birdies on 11, 12 and 13 and won again.

Benfield, who beat Dorsett in last year’s final for his biggest career victory so far, was a graceful and grateful runner-up.

“It’s like I told Kevin Lentz, ‘We got to see the vintage Keith Dorsett today,'” Benfield said. “I was really happy with how I played throughout the tournament, but when Keith has it going, he’s the Tiger Woods of Rowan County and he’s going to be tough to beat. It was an honor being out there with him, an honor to be competing with someone playing golf at that level. Just to be able to hold my own most of the match meant I was playing quality golf. I hit as many fairways and  greens as I have in a long time.”

Benfield’s tournament path as the No. 1 seed was supposed to be smooth, but he got an unexpected wake-up call in the first round.

“As the defending champion, I played the No. 32 seed in the first round, a guy (Ronnie Walker) that I didn’t know and the last one to make the field with an 85 in qualifying,” Bennett said. “But he walks out there and shoots a 74, so I had to play well right from the jump.”

Benfield, who graduated from East Rowan 25 years ago, got past Brad Evans and Chase Hathcock, the former East Rowan and Rowan Legion baseball player, on Saturday.

“Brad striped the ball all day, but I played really well to win against him, and then a really fun round with Chase,” Benfield said. “We bonded over both of us being East Mustangs. We exchanged numbers. Hopefully, we’ll play together again.”

Then Benfield won 3 and 2 against Derek Lipe, always a contender and a recent Labor Day champion, in a Sunday morning semifinal.

“We’re playing with Keith and Kevin, so I can see how well Keith is striking it,” Benfield said. “I knew that even if I got past Derek, it was going to be a really tough match with Keith.”

The two men who teed it up for the final were thankful to be playing in reasonable temperatures for July, as they embarked on their fifth round in three days.

Benfield figures he made three bad shots in the entire tournament, but one of those wayward shots came early in the final with Dorsett and got him down a hole.

Dorsett described it not as a bad shot, but as an “unfortunate shot” that carried further than Benfield intended, and saddled him with a rare bogey.

“Shane hit a flier out of the rough on No. 3 and it went OB,” Dorsett said. “The deeper you get in a tournament like this, the fewer mistakes are going to be made. Guys like Kevin and Shane, they’re not going to make many mistakes. You expect to have to make five or six birdies to have a chance to beat them.”

The match swung Dorsett’s way for good on No. 6. Both men played the hole brilliantly. Benfield had a putt for eagle but settled for birdie. Dorsett had put his second shot right on the stick and had an easy eagle, it there is such a thing, for a two-hole lead.

On No. 7, both had short testers for birdies. Benfield missed his putt. Dorsett made his and was 3-up.

“I had a lot of momentum at that point,” Dorsett said.

Dorsett was in control and stayed there, although Benfield made him earn it.

“I made birdies on 9 and 10,” Benfield said. “But I still wasn’t gaining any. We were both flag-hunting and birdies were flying.”

Dorsett’s lead was four holes after 12.

Benfield won the 13th with a birdie to get back to a three-hole deficit, but Benfield’s three-putt on No. 14 allowed Dorsett to restore his 4-up advantage.

“I was still hoping to make a run, but that three-putt, that was pretty much it,” Benfield said.

Benfield got up and down for a scrambling par on the 15th, but Dorsett continued to play mistake-free golf. He calmly made a routine par to halve the hole, close out the match and hoist his first major championship trophy in seven years.

Dorsett was able to beat two of the best local golfers on the same day. Lentz is a perennial contender in the major match play tournaments and has endured more than his share of runner-up finishes. He knocked out Michael Swaringen, the qualifying medalist and second seed, in Round 2.

“Kevin is the best golfer in Rowan County who hasn’t won one of the big ones yet, but I have no doubt he’s going to win some,” Dorsett said. “To win against golfers as good as Kevin and Shane means a lot. It was very important to me to prove to myself I could still win a tournament and I was able to get it done.”

Shortly after the tournament, Benfield was on the driving range working with son, Brody, a rising freshman at East Rowan.  Brody (14) and his brother, Tatum Benfield (12), will be playing in a 14U CGA event in Greensboro on Monday and Tuesday, as the cycle of Rowan County golf continues.