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Balon plays two career rounds, wins August classic

Cody Balon shot a 69 in the first round of the weekend's Woodlawn August Classic and, at the time it was the best round he'd ever played.
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Cody Balon shot a 69 in the first round of the weekend's Woodlawn August Classic and, at the time it was the best round he'd ever played.The two-under-par 69 placed Balon one stroke behind Brian Hank for second place overall after the first round, and placed him in the championship flight.Balon then shot a 76 in Sunday's round, dropping him three strokes from the lead heading into Monday's final, where it was looking like he'd need to finish with another personal best score if he was going to claim his first Woodlawn Classic title.But lo and behold, not only did Balon improve on his first round score, he beat it by three strokes for an incredible 5-under-par round of 66.The impressive score proved to be the best round of the three-day tournament, and left Balon as the clear cut winner, finishing with a three-day total of 211.Monday's runner-up turned out to be Brody Moreland from Muskegon, Michigan who finished three strokes back of Balon with a total of 214. Moreland's second-place finish capped off an impressive weekend, as he was the winner of Sunday's horse race.But the real question is, after three rounds of golf and Sunday's horse race, not to mention the many non-golf related events that come with the tournament, did Balon manage to muster up the stamina to shoot the best round of his life?"I really don't even know," Balon laughed. "Just have fun is basically all I tried to do and I had a great time."The impressive scores put Balon into unfamiliar territory, as he found himself with a very real chance at the championship trophy."I'm never in these types of situations," said Balon. "I was low going into 13 and that's when my heart kind of started beating a little bit faster, and I was getting nervous.After three days full of golf, Balon admitted that the pressure heading into Monday's final few holes took the most out of him physically.Nervous or not, Balon saved the best for last as he played a stellar back-nine, shooting a tournament-best 32 to cement the win.Rounding out the top four in the championship flight were Michael Ross, who finished the tournament with a score of 215 and Brian Hank with a score of 217.Nolan Rohatyn, who won the tournament in 2009 was left just out of the top-four, finishing with a three-day total of 218.

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