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When Cameron Kellett graduated from high school last year, he put together a plan to pursue his golf dreams.

The first step?

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Ref as many minor hockey games as possible.

“I made enough money to go down south (to Florida) for two months and was able to dial in down there,” the 18-year-old Lambeth native said, “and the goal was to come back home, play free golf and light it up.”

It was nuts, a crazy match. Cameron Kellett

Last week, the London Aquinas grad put the exclamation point on a month-long burner by winning the 32nd edition of the Ontario men’s match play championship at the Lake Joseph Club in Port Carling.

“That’s been the highlight so far,” he said.

Kellett entered the tournament as the No. 20 seed and drew fellow Londoner Jackson Bowery, a pal, right out of the gate.

“He was two-up after nine and I was able to battle back,” Kellett said. “Once I got past him, I didn’t really expect to last past the second or third round. But in the third, I was five-under through 15 and I started to realize I was meant to be there.”

In the semifinal, he played a nail-biter against Aurora’s Shyamal Nagindas that came down to the last hole.

“It was nuts, a crazy match,” Kellett said. “At first, we thought we lost my ball but ended up finding it way back. So I hit a seven (iron) from 220 (yards) onto the green and then drained like a 50-footer to beat him.”

On the other side of the bracket, Brantford’s Eric Shea made an impressive run to the final.

“He was dusting everybody,” Kellett said. “I lost the first hole, then I won 2-3-4 and I wasn’t going to let him come back.”

The teen was five-up through 10 and he finished it out in 14 holes.

“That’s been the highlight so far,” Kellett said.

He’s been eager to break through this spring. He finished with a tournament-low 66 to just miss a playoff at Golf Ontario’s junior boys Spring Classic at Wooden Sticks and opened with two consecutive three-under 68s — and the lead — before settling for second at Golf Canada’s Future Links Ontario championship.