Golden Tee’s first tournament of 2012 is in the books.

The Florida Open – the first stop on the PEGT Tour – kicked off Power Events’ season this past weekend. Fifty-six players headed to Mugshots Bar and Grill for the second consecutive year to kick off the tourney season.

Although the final PEGT event won’t be played until December, each of these six stops are crucial in terms of acquiring PEGT Tour Points. It also doesn’t hurt matters to start the year off on the right foot, which many were looking to do.

Festivities got underway on Saturday with the five-course qualifier. The top 32 players with best qualifying score moved on to the main bracket, and the top of the leaderboard was crowded as usual.

Houston’s Mark Stenmark was the top qualifier overall, surprise surprise, with a 5-course score of -126. Chicago trackballer Graig Kinzler was second with a total score of -124. Minneosta’s Marc Muklewicz (-121) was third followed by Ohio native Andy Haas (-120) and Tampa’s Sean Gervais (-118).

The top ten in qualifying was as follows.

With qualifying complete, the field was set. And although there were many in the room capable of taking this one down, it was North Carolina’s David Duncan who did the damage on Sunday.

Duncan has plenty of game. In fact, there might not be a better player in the world when it comes to hitting it close to (or in) the cup and accumulating obscene amounts of Great Shot Points. The man knows how to shoot, and he has a very unique and deliberate style to boot.

David was dealt a difficult tournament draw but beat some of the game’s best to move on through the bracket. In order, Duncan took down POTY winner/Minnesota pro Andy Fox, fellow North Carolina GT vet Adam Ashley, two-time GT world champion Graig Kinzler, and top qualifier Marc “The Mouth” Muklewicz in a sudden death thriller.

In the match for King of the Hill – aka a secured spot in the finals – Duncan took on the game’s hottest player, Mark Stenmark. Playing on Grand Canyon, Duncan holed out on the fourth hole to take a one-stroke lead. He followed this up with an ace on the eleventh hole to go up two. That’s how the match would remain, and David cruised to an impressive -27 to -25 win.

Undefeated and in the finals, Duncan waited for his finals opponent. The other side of the bracket played its way down and it was Mark Stenmark and Marc Muklewicz duking it out on Tundra Peak for the other finals’ spot. Muklewicz holed out on the first hole and from that point didn’t look back. He cruised over Stenmark -25 to -19 and earned at least one more match against the man who beat him earlier.

In order to win the Florida Open, however, Marc would have to beat Duncan twice in a row. Not an easy task considering he had yet to drop a game that day.

Playing on Grand Canyon in match one, Muklewicz dropped a few shots early on, but Marc picked one of those back up and was just one back through fifteen. On the seventeenth, however, Muklewicz found the water which all but sealed it for Duncan who laid up on the eighteenth and tapped in for the tournament win.

Congrats to David Duncan on the tournament title and everyone that made the trip to Florida for the event. This marks the beginning of another fantastic tournament season in 2012. The next PEGT Tour stop will be in St. Louis in April, and we’ll have much more on this event as it approaches.

Visit Power Events’ official website for more information and stay tuned to LIVEWIRE for more!