Life is good for Elmwood Golf Club pro Brennan Rumancik, who's coming off a win at the 2018 Taylormade ProAm tournament Tuesday afternoon.

Rumancik cleared the field by three strokes to take the title at Moon Lake Golf and Country Club outside of Saskatoon.

"It feels great - it's always a tournament that's high on anybody's list to win," he shared. "I feel fortunate enough to win that. Looking back on it today, I'm very pumped that I won that one."

The two-day tournament didn't necessarily get off to the start Rumancik was looking for. A triple-bogey on the 18th hole was among some woes in an opening-round +2 (74).

"I actually played really good on my first day. I actually took an eight on a par 5, which can hurt any round," Rumancik laughed. "I had a couple other bad holes too, I had a couple three-putts, I had one four-putt. It was just one of those days where nothing was really going right."

The 74 on Day 1 left Rumancik four shots back of the lead, but perhaps a shift in mindset led to a successfully aggressive second-and-final round.

"Sometimes your Round 1, you go out there and you just want to make sure you're in it going into Day 2. I kind of felt like that was a little bit of the case," Rumancik admitted. "I was just trying to make sure I was giving myself a chance going into Day 2. Going into (the final round), being four back, I knew I had to go out and make some birdies. I was lucky enough to get a couple down early, which helped, then the rest just kind of followed after that."

The Elmwood Golf Club pro fired a tournament-best round of 69 to close at -1 for the event.

Being able to relax and, more metaphorically than literally, play with nothing to lose is certainly an approach the pro and golf instructor is fond of.

"I tell anybody, playing aggressively is always going to be much better for you than playing passively," explained Rumancik. "That's something that if people can get in that mindset, they're always going to play much better than guarding against some shots and hitting some bad shots because if it. I was lucky enough that I was in that situation, and fortunately for me it worked out."

Meanwhile, coming off a win at the Taylormade ProAm in 2017, Elmwood Golf Club head pro Jeff Chambers finished in a two-way tie for second at +2. It's now been a heavily-dominated event by the Elmwood staff the past two years.

"That's I guess just a cool stat that both of us are kind of defending champs. Going into this year, (Jeff) was trying defend his title, and next year I'll be going and trying to do the exact same thing," said Rumancik. "It's neat - it's definitely cool, and it's nice to have Elmwood kind of on the map with that one." 

With the win, Rumancik secured early exemption into the 2019 PGA Championship of Canada, though it's a box the Elmwood pro had already checked.

"That's always nice to gain that early exemption from Taylormade to get into that event. It's always one of my favourite events of the year to play in. I think fortunately enough for myself, I was already pre-qualified for that one. Having that assurance now that I am qualified is definitely nice though."