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JUPITER, FLORIDA | With two swift slashes of a practice swing, Allen Peake strides into his setup position and stares down the treacherous par-3 17th at Dye Preserve Golf Club.
Golf invites internal stresses of all kinds, but this situation has a rare burden. Peake’s scramble partner at the National Senior-Junior team event, fellow Mercer University alum Justin Connelly, deposited his tee ball into the middle of the lake and is counting on his 59-year-old ally to at least find dry land as they look to finish the event in good spirits.
With a wide shoulder turn, Peake slings the club back like an Olympic hammer thrower and then transitions down into a smooth cut across the ball, finishing into a high, Arnold Palmer-esque follow-through. There is a bail-out area left of the green far from the hole cut a handful of paces from the water’s edge, but Peake’s approach sails right over the flag. A couple of minutes later, he gently coaxes a left-to-right 12-foot birdie putt down the hill, the ball falling into the darkness on its last revolution.
“I guess I just needed a little bit of pressure on me,” Peake says with a warm Southern cadence.
Pressure is nothing foreign to the born-and-raised Macon, Georgia, resident for a variety of reasons.
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