McCarthy wins Fuhrer Invitational in record fashion
Korn Ferry Tour player finishes 14 under for 1-shot victory at Pittsburgh Field Club
It doesn’t matter to Dan McCarthy where the victories come and, sometimes, how much they pay.
But they are all the more satisfying when the winning score obliterates the tournament record and 38 of the 40 players in the field never get closer than 11 shots.
McCarthy’s final-round 66 on Wednesday was enough to catch Irwin native Dan Obremski and win the $200,000 Frank B. Fuhrer Invitational by one shot at the Pittsburgh Field Club. His record score of 14-under 266 earned him the $40,000 first prize and sent him in a good frame of mind back to the Korn Ferry Tour, where McCarthy is trying to earn his way to the PGA Tour after barely missing last year.
“I felt like my game was trending even last week in Utah when I finished 52nd,” McCarthy said. “If you can shoot 14-under out here for four days, you’re game is obviously in a good place. I’m just going to try to build on it going forward and hopefully turn it into a win out there.”
McCarthy needed only to two-putt the final hole from 22 feet for par to edge Obremski, who missed the green at the
par-3 finishing hole and made bogey.
It was a disappointing ending for Obremski, who began the day with a three-shot lead on McCarthy and shot a finalround 70. He even birdied two of the final four holes at the Field Club.
It was the second time in three years McCarthy has won the invitational. Each time he came back from three shots down for the victory.
“I was just trying to keep up,” McCarthy said. “He may have just dragged me along. I was patient enough until I was able to put a little run on the back nine there. It turned out to just be enough.”
After making just three bogeys in the first 54 holes, Obremski made five in the final round, none more damaging than at the 72nd hole, the 220-yard par-3 when his 7iron tee shot came up short left of the putting surface.
After forcing a final-hole showdown with a spectacular 3-foot birdie at No. 17 — he lofted a 54-degree wedge from 126 yards over a tree from the right rough — Obremski saw his chance at the $40,000 first prize disappear when he missed a 6-foot par putt that would have forced a playoff.
“He played really well,” Obremski said. “To shoot 4under to win, that’s pretty solid. Me, having a three-shot lead and shooting even par, looking back, that’s pretty darn good and could be good enough to win. But it wasn’t.”
McCarthy and Obremski so outdistanced the rest of the field that the next closest player was defending champion and PGA Tour member Mike Gligic, who finished third at 3-under 277. Obremski’s bogey at the final hole kept him from joining McCarthy as the only players to post all four rounds in the 60s.
“Dan played tremendous golf,” McCarthy said. “I’ve been on the other side of those before. He played great. He certainly deserved to win, no question.”
Even during his postround acceptance speech, McCarthy lauded Obremski’s performance, saying to him, “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
The high praise meant a lot to Obremski. At 33 and with no status on any tour of which to speak, he has been teetering about which way to go with his career. He spends a lot of time giving lessons at a learning center in West Palm Beach, Fla., and has been playing in some occasional one-day events in Florida. He won three times on the GPro Tour and a couple other mini-tour events, but those wins combined likely don’t equal the $20,000 he won — the largest paycheck of his career — for finishing second at the Field Club.
“Dan saying that to me is awesome,” said Obremski, whose previous biggest payday was $15,000 for finishing 56th at the PGA Tour’s Greenbrier Classic. “It’s encouraging. The past year, I’ve been like, man, should I just hang it up and not play? Sometimes you need a little faith and mustard seed to keep you going. I had lost hope for a while. This week was telling me I can do it, I can be on tour for sure. I know I can now.”
McCarthy’s only hiccup came when he bogeyed the uphill par-4 third hole that dropped him four shots from the lead. After that he was nearly flawless, making back-to-back birdies at Nos. 4 and 5, then again at Nos. 10 and 11.
The bending 15-foot birdie at the par-4 10th was big on several fronts, and not just because of its sloping difficulty. It came right after he missed a 3-foot birdie at No. 9 and allowed him to pull him within a shot of Obremski. When McCarthy birdied the par-5 11th after laying up in the fairway, he finally had battled back for a share of the lead.
When Obremski bogeyed the par-3 14th from the right fairway bunker, McCarthy had the lead for the first time since the end of the second round. And he didn’t let go.
“I hit a lot of really good shots when I needed to,” McCarthy said. “I did a good job today of hitting it in the right spots where I could at least be somewhat aggressive. It’s always tough to be aggressive at the Fuhrer.”