Utah golfer wins Mackenzie Tour finale

LONDON — Patrick Fishburn would have liked to have gone one stoke lower on Sunday, but he’ll settle for finishing 21-under par to win the $225,000 Mackenzie Tour Canada Life Championship this weekend at Highland Country Club.

The Ogden, Utah, native shot 66, 65 and 64 in his first three rounds this week and felt he had a little more in him.

“I wanted to keep it going and try to shoot 63,” he said. “I knew I had to make a lot of birdies because there are so many good players out here and I knew I had to keep the pedal down.”

David Pastore of Greenwich, Conn., shot seven-under 63 Sunday to take second place, three strokes behind Fishburn, and Eric McCardle of Oak Harbor, Wash., who was the final qualifier for the season-ending championship tournament at Highland, finished third at 16-under after a 65 Sunday.

Fishburn’s win comes a week after he missed his first cut of the season at the Mackenzie Investments Open in Montreal.

The win and its $40,500 in prize money moves Fishburn from 11th to fifth on the Mackenzie Tour’s Order of Merit, which gives him conditional status on next year’s Korn Ferry Tour.

Canadian Taylor Pendrith, who finished 10-under after a 69 on Sunday, was threatening to overtake Paul Barjon of France for top spot on the Order of Merit, but four straight bogeys on his final five holes on Saturday dropped him six shots behind Fishburn going into Sunday.

Pendrith managed to hold on to second place, however, earning $124,590. Barjon finished with $127,336.

The Richmond Hill golfer also won a $25,000 bonus as the Tour’s Canadian player of the year.

“I started the week off great and didn’t have the weekend I was hoping for, but I was there until the end and I was grinding,” Pendrith said.”The putts didn’t go in today but overall it was a great year and I’m super excited to be finishing in the Top 5 and hopefully I’ll have a good year next year (on the Korn Ferry Tour).”

Barjon finished 27th Sunday at five-under par, which was a bit of a comeback after opening Thursday with a two-over 72.