The two golfers then went to the 487-yard, par-5 ninth hole for a sudden-death playoff after Tuesday’s final round and hit their tee shots into a headwind.

Pedersen striped his tee shot down the middle of a tight, narrow fairway.

Bunn hooked his tee shot toward a water hazard and some rocks way on the left.

“I was just sitting on the tee box for like five seconds thinking, ‘OK, well, it’s over. I just hit it in the hazard, he’s middle of the fairway,” Bunn told the Standard-Examiner in a phone interview Thursday.

He got the luckiest of lucky breaks. His shot hit a rock and bounced into the fairway.

There was a rules official near where the ball hit the rock, who radioed to the rules official back at the tee.

“The rules official behind me was like, ‘Oh, he said it’s in the fairway, and I looked back like, ‘You’re crazy, that was so far left.’ And he’s like, ‘It hit a rock and it went into the fairway,’ and I just started laughing,” Bunn said. “I couldn’t believe how lucky it was.”

Three shots later, Bunn made an 8-foot birdie putt to win the 5A state championship. Bunn said his putting “came in clutch” all tournament, with the final putt being another example.

“It feels really good,” he said. “It got pretty nervous down the stretch though, but yeah, looking back on it, I’m pretty excited.”

Bonneville’s team missed the cut for the second round, so Bunn had an earlier tee time and thus finished his second round earlier than many others.

He signed his scorecard after shooting a 4-under 68 in the second round, then went to the 18th green to watch everyone else finish.

Bunn had just pulled off an impressive birdie on the 18th hole to give him the clubhouse lead for the tournament at 7-under. But he knew Pedersen was still on the course.

“I was pretty nervous watching the players play because I just don’t have any control over what they do, but yeah, Will made two birdies in the last three holes to force a playoff and yeah, that was really fun,” Bunn said.

The wild ending to the tournament capped a wild tournament overall for Bunn, in his view. Particularly, his Tuesday second round stands out.

“My first drive, I hit a tree 20 yards ahead of me and it goes into the water. So I go bogey, birdie, bogey, par ,birdie, bogey, par, (par), birdie, so it was a really crazy day — and then I go 4-under on the back,” he said. “It was just all over the place.”

East High’s Sean Lampropoulos had the clubhouse lead at 6-under. Bunn knew that as he set up for his second shot from behind a tree on the 18th hole in the second round.

He hit a 60-degree wedge, landed it softly on the green and made the 4-foot birdie putt.

“It was a really good shot. I told my coach that I had adrenaline, so I clubbed down one and it ended up a really good shot when I needed it the most,” Bunn said.

Then came the playoff. After Bunn’s near-disastrous tee shot, he hit his second shot to the rough 40 yards short and to the right of the green, nearly out of bounds. Pedersen, meanwhile, had a 45-footer for eagle.

Bunn, an Oklahoma State golf commit, got his chip shot to about 8 feet away and Pedersen rolled his eagle putt about 6 feet past the hole. Bunn made his left-breaking putt and Pedersen pushed his to the right.

The win made Bunn the first Weber County boys golfer to win a state championship since Weber’s Connor Howe in 2016, and the first Bonneville golfer to win a state title since Carson Park in 2013.

It also ensured that Bunn won’t have a certain designation when he heads to Oklahoma.

“My coach at Oklahoma State, coach (Alan) Bratton, he’s been giving me (a hard time) for not winning a state title,” Bunn said. “I’m the only recruit that hasn’t won a state title so he was like, ‘You better win, you better win,’ so I had that in the back of my mind. Glad I got it done.”

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.