Applebrook Golf Club head pro Dave McNabb finished up with a
solid even-par 72 at the PGA Golf Club’s Wanamaker Course Sunday to finish in a
tie for 11th in the Senior PGA Professional Championship, supported
by GolfAdvisor.com and John Deere, in Port St. Lucie, Fla. to punch his ticket
to next spring’s KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.
McNabb, the winner of the Philadelphia Senior PGA
Professional Championship at White Manor Country Club in August, ended up with
a 5-under 283 total. The top 35 finishers advanced to the Senior PGA
Championship, a PGA Tour Champions major which tees off May 23 at Oak Hill
Country Club in Pittsford, N.Y.
McNabb had an adventurous front nine at the Wanamaker Course
Sunday with birdies at the second, third and seventh holes, bogeys at the
first, fifth and sixth holes and a double bogey at the eighth hole that left
him 2-over for the round heading to the back nine. He settled down on that
incoming nine with birdies at the 14th and 16th holes
that got him back to even for the round.
Two other Philadelphia Section PGA representatives, Dave
Quinn of Philmont Country Club and Brian Kelly of Bucknell Golf Club, finished
in a large group tied for 35th at 2-over 290, but failed to survive
a playoff for the final two berths in the Senior PGA Championship.
Quinn had a 3-over 75 in the final round while Kelly carded
a 1-over 73. They needed to be one shot better.
John Pillar, the director of golf at the Country Club at
Woodloch Springs, had a final round of 5-over 77 for a 4-over 292 total that
left him two shots from the cutoff for the playoff.
McNabb had put himself in position to earn a trip to the PGA
Championship for the fourth time in six years in the PGA Professional
Championship at the Bayonet and Black Horse Courses on northern California’s
Montery Peninsula in June before faltering in the final round.
He regrouped and put his focus on earning a trip to the
Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill. He took the first step with his victory at
White Manor and Sunday he reached his goal.
Bob Sowards, the director of instruction at the Kinsale Golf
& Fitness Center in Powell, Ohio, put his name on the Leo Fraser Trophy and
earned the top prize of $21,500 as he matched par in the final round with a 72
for a 13-under 275 total that was two shots clear of the field of the top senior club
pros from all over the country.
Sowards, in his first year of eligibility for the Senior PGA
Professional Championship, separated himself from the pack when he holed out a
shot from a greenside bunker at the par-5 16th hole for an eagle.Sowards is only the second player to win both the PGA Professional Championship and the Senior PGA Professional Championship.
Omar Uresti, a former PGA Tour player from Austin, Texas,
and Walt Chapman, an instructor at the Fairways and Greens Golf Center in Knoxville,
Tenn., finished in a tie for second at 11-under 277.
Uresti, who defeated Applebrook’s McNabb in a playoff in the
2017 PGA Professional Championship at the Sunriver Resort in Oregon, had a
share of the lead going into the final round, but posted a 2-over 74 that left
him two shots behind Sowards.
Chapman had surged into contention with a 5-under 67
Saturday and finished up with a solid 3-under 69 to get a piece of second.
Two-time Senior PGA Professional Championship winner Mike
San Filippo of Hobe Sound, Fla. finished alone in fourth at 10-under 278. He
posted a final round of 1-under 71.
Also earning a ticket to Oak Hill was Gene Fieger, an
instructor at Club Pelican Bay in Naples, Fla. who dominated the Philadelphia
Section in the 1990s when he was an assistant pro at Overbrook Golf Club.
The 58-year-old Fieger, the winner of the 2013 Senior PGA
Professional Championship, had moved up the leaderboard with a 6-under 66 in
Saturday’s third round. His 2-over 74 in Sunday’s final round left him in a tie
for ninth at 6-under 282.
Another name familiar to followers of the local golf scene,
Philadelphia area native Charlie Bolling, listed as a lifetime member from the
Metropolitan Section, also ended up in the group tied for 35th at
2-over 290, but failed to survive the playoff for the final two tickets to Oak
Hill. Bolling matched par in the final round with a 72.
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