When Jerry Gunthorpe is locked in, look out. The 62-year-old took the lead in the first round of this week’s Golfweek Senior Desert Showdown and never relinquished it. On Friday, he capped off a three-shot victory in the national senior amateur event.

“I think this week, more than anything, I had determination and drive,” said Gunthorpe, who hadn’t competed in nearly four months, “and if I feel like I want to be there and if I have commitment to the time and effort that I was putting into it, usually I can perform my best. I wanted to be here, I wanted to compete, and I wanted to play.”

Gunthorpe, looking for a warm retreat from his Ovid, Michigan, home, arrived early and played two practice rounds at historic Las Vegas National Golf Club. It helped him learn the character of the greens.

“That was the most difficult part of this golf course was trying to get the ball close to the hole because there were so many different types of shots you had to hit into the greens, especially on the par 3s,” he said.

Gunthorpe, whose strength is in his ballstriking, approaches a golf course from the greens backward.

“Really the placement of the ball was extremely difficult into the greens,” he went on, “and that’s kind of what probably separated me from some of the guys – I was able to control the distance of my irons fairly well for the three rounds.”

Gunthorpe put together rounds of 69-73-72 and finished three shots ahead of Bryan Hoops from Tempe, Arizona. That’s no small feat, considering Hoops got on a hot streak earlier this year and won five events. Gunthorpe, meanwhile, hadn’t played a tournament since the British Senior Amateur in July.

Gunthorpe, who still works as a mechanical contractor and owns an HVAC plumbing business, is an avid deer hunter as well as golfer. His trip to Las Vegas happened to fit in around bow hunting season in October and when gun season begins Nov. 15. But there was more to it than that. After competing a lot in the spring, but never really feeling like he was playing well, he decided to shut it down after the British Senior Amateur.

“I got into some, I don’t want to say bad swings,” he said of his game, “it was just, mentally I wasn’t crisp, I wasn’t there.”

Between work being busy and playing so many spring events, Gunthorpe just felt worn out. Gunthorpe eventually found his way back to solid play on his own, just like he always has. He is self-taught in the game, and never has had a single lesson. Asked for the pro who was most influential in shaping his swing, Gunthorpe named Jack Nicklaus. When Gunthorpe was a kid, he would study the “Golf My Way” feature in Golf Digest authored by Nicklaus.

“I cut them all out and made a book out of them and that was my Bible.”

In later years, Gunthorpe began videotaping his golf swing – back before it was even a thing. It’s all feel for Gunthorpe, and always has been.

“I’ve always worked on my swing mechanics on my own,” he said. “I know what I can do, I know what I’m able to do. I’ve always been that way.”

Gunthorpe’s victory over Hoops in the Senior division was the closest contest in the tournament’s four age divisions. In the Super Senior division, Jon Valuck of Scottsdale, Arizona, also went wire-to-wire but finished 4 over and six shots ahead of David Nelson of Littleton, Colorado.

Golfweek Senior Desert Showdown Legend, Super Legend winners

David Ujihara of Brea, California, began the week tied for the lead with Dan Parkinson of Lehi, Utah. Over the final 36 holes, however, Ujihara pulled away from Parkinson and Las Vegas local John Turk for a five-shot victory. Ujihara was 3 over while Parkinson and Turk were 8 over. The next-closest competitor in the division was Greg Osborne of Lititz, Pennsylvania, at 21 over.

David Crocker of Bluffton, South Carolina, won the Super Legend division at 15 over, six shots ahead of Bill Engel of St. Augustine, Florida.