By STEVE WILLIAMS

Mike Smith hadn’t seen Greensboro National Golf Club until playing a practice round before the Triad Golf Today Interclub Challenge, but he quickly learned to negotiate the course without any major problems.

He made nothing more than bogey in his two-round romp to a two-shot victory in the event reserved for team members who didn’t qualify for the Tournament of Champions.

“This is the first year I’ve played in this tournament and there were a lot of good golfers,” he said. “This is a very good golf course and I’ve always heard that the greens were perfect.”

That wasn’t the case April 5-6 as golfers struggled to find their putting strokes after weather-delayed greens maintenance left the surfaces far from pure.

“The greens sort of neutralized everybody,” Smith said. “When you get a 20-footer, you’re struggling to two-putt. You don’t get a lot of birdie chances out here and when you did the greens were the story.”

But Smith wasn’t about to let it bother him.

His first-round 70 was the tournament’s only under-par score from a total field of 107. That included 37 players who competed in the Tournament of Champions, which was played in conjunction with the Interclub Challenge. Smith slipped to a 76 Sunday, but nobody could mount a serious challenge.

“I putted exceptionally well,” he said of the first round that allowed him to open a three-shot lead over five golfers. He scored birdies at Nos. 5 and 6 to turn the front in 34 and he canceled a bogey at 12 with a birdie at 15 to complete the 70. The score was just a stroke off Jason Harris’ interclub tournament record.

In the final pairing Sunday, only Patrick Brady, who opened with a 73, was able to cut into Smith’s margin. The Reidsville golfer had eight pars and a bogey while Smith took a pair of bogeys in the same stretch and saw his lead sliced to two shots after the front nine.

But Brady’s hopes faded at the par-4 10th when he suffered a double bogey and Smith scored his only birdie of the day for a three-shot swing and a five-shot advantage.

“I drove it left over the hazard, chipped out, hit it on the green and then three-putted,” Brady said. “That pretty shot me out of it.”

Smith suffered bogeys at 11, 13 and 14 but was steady down the stretch, closing with four straight pars.

High school sophomore Weston Way began the day five shots off the pace but fired a 73 to claim second place, two shots off Smith’s total.

David Eagan was third at 149 (74-75) and Brady (73-77) and James Goin (74-76) shared fourth at 150.

Smith, 37, is a self-taught player.

“I never played golf formally anywhere and I’ve never had a lesson,” he said. “I just picked up the game and keep playing. I’m not going to make a living at it.”

Smith’s previous claim to fame came in the 1999 Durham Herald-Sun Classic, an event that annually draws a large field and includes a couple of rounds of flight qualifying and then five rounds of match play. He beat Tony Lovette 2 and 1 at Willowhaven Country Club in Durham to take that title.

His only other individual titles were a couple of club championships at Cedar Grove.

“I enjoy tournaments like this, win or lose,” Smith said, adding that he plays in about 10 or 12 a year, including two-man events with partner Steve Bigham.

By winning the Interclub individual title, Smith qualifies for next year’s Tournament of Champions.