Radley Run's Melton the top Philadelphia Section finisher in PGA Professional Championship

   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 30^th at 5-over 293.

   A sparkling 4-under 68 in Tuesday’s third round at Bayonet had moved McNabb into a tie for 10^th. 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 49^th 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 63^rd 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 69^th 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.