Applebrook Golf Club head pro Dave McNabb saw his bid for a
fourth trip to the PGA Championship get away from him with a bad start while
Radley Run Country Club assistant pro Brett Melton’s late bid came up a shot
short in the final round of the PGA Professional Championship, presented by
Club Car and OMEGA, Wednesday at the Bayonet and Black Horse Resort on the
Monterey Peninsula in northern California.
McNabb entered the final round in solid position to make it
to the PGA Championship for the fourth time in six years, but he opened with a
double bogey on the first hole of the 7,084-yard, par-72 Bayonet Course. Bogeys
on the next three holes left McNabb 5-over after four holes.
McNabb went even par the rest of the way, but the damage was
done. His final-round 77 left him tied for 30th at 5-over 293.
A sparkling 4-under 68 in Tuesday’s third round at Bayonet
had moved McNabb into a tie for 10th. The top 20 finishers were
awarded tickets to the PGA Championship, which tees off Aug. 9 at Bellerive
Country Club outside of St. Louis.
McNabb lost in a playoff for the PGA Professional
Championship to former PGA Tour regular Omar Uresti a year ago at the Sunriver
Resort in Oregon and played in the PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in
Charlotte, N.C.
Melton ended up as the highest finisher among the five
Philadelphia Section PGA pros who played all four rounds at the Bayonet and
Black Horse Resort.
Melton, the Section’s reigning OMEGA Player of the Year,
fired a final round of 2-under 70 Wednesday and finished just a shot out of the
bulky 9-for-5 playoff that took two-and-a-half hours to sort out with a 4-over
292 total.
Bethlehem Golf Club assistant pro Alex Knoll had a
final-round 75 to finish in the group tied for 49th at 7-over 295.
Brendon Post, an assistant coach and director of player development for the
Delaware men’s golf team, had a final-round 78 to finish in the group tied for
63rd at 298.
Billy Stewart, an assistant pro at The ACE Club, looked like
he was poised to make a run at the top 20 when he fired a 1-under 71 at Bayonet
in the second round, but fell back with a 77 in Tuesday’s third round and a 78
Wednesday to finish tied for 69th at 301.
Still, Stewart, who starred scholastically at Malvern Prep
and collegiately at Saint Joseph’s University, did well to play all four rounds
in his first try at the PGA Professional Championship – I prefer its old-school
moniker, the National Club Pro. I think he’ll get a few more shots.
Ryan Vermeer, the newly minted director of instruction at
the Happy Hollow Club in Omaha, Neb., did one of the toughest things in golf as
he went wire-to-wire to capture the top prize of $55,000 and get his name
inscribed on the Walter Hagen Cup.
After three straight 2-under 70s, Vermeer birdied the final
hole for a 1-over 73 for a 5-under 283 total that gave the former Kansas
All-American a two-shot victory.
The Bayonet and Black Horse courses seem to bring out the
best in the Midwesterners.
Sean McCarty, the head pro at Brown Deer Golf Club in Coralville,
Iowa, and Bob Sowards, the 2004 winner of the National Club Pro who is the
director of instruction at the Kinsale Golf & Fitness Club in Powell, Ohio,
shared second place at 3-under 285.
McCarty, a member of Iowa’s 1992 Big Ten championship team,
fired a final round of 4-under 68 and Sowards, who spent some time on the PGA
Tour in his career, carded a 3-under 69 Wednesday.
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