BEDFORD, Pa. -- With no leader boards or standard-bearers anywhere on the golf course, none of the 33 players who remained in the 108th West Penn Amateur yesterday had any idea what was transpiring during the final round.

Not until the final threesome finished an agonizing five hours after they started did anyone discover the champion of the 54-hole event. And that was only after one of the spectators yelled "Who won?" to Nathan Smith as he walked off the 18th green at the newly restored Bedford Springs Resort.

Said Smith, 29, a former U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, "I did."

Not that anyone should be surprised.

Smith shot a final-round 68 -- one of just two subpar rounds on a wind-gusted day -- to finish at 5-under 208, good for a five-shot victory over Nevillewood's John Popeck and six over 36-hole leader Jeffrey Varga of Hannastown, who began the day with a four-shot lead but made three double bogeys en route to a 79.

Smith made five birdies and only two bogeys -- none after the ninth hole -- to become the first repeat champion since Sean Knapp in 2003. The only other player to better par yesterday was Ron DeNunzio Jr. of Jeannette, who shot 69 to tie for third.

"It was tough out there," said Smith, a member at Wildwood Country Club in Hampton. "It's a tough course and the wind was definitely a factor. That was the hardest part."

Not bad, though, for a player who had never seen the remodeled layout at Bedford Springs until he teed off in the first round.

Smith competed last weekend in the prestigious Northeast Amateur, a 72-hole event in Rumsford, R.I., where he finished second after an opening-round 63. As soon as he finished, he and his father, Larry, who caddied for him, drove nearly nine hours back home -- "The gasoline is so cheap we figured we would drive," the younger Smith joked -- and didn't arrive home until 2 a.m. Sunday.

He came to the Bedford resort Sunday night and played 36 holes Monday, shooting 1-under 70 in each of his first two rounds to enter the final round five shots behind Varga, who plays at Saint Vincent College.

"I didn't have too much energy," Smith said. "You have 36 holes staring you in the face, you're just trying to get through that first 18. It was tough."

Playing in the final group with Varga and Sean Brannan, 18, of Hollidaysburg, Smith wasted little time finding the energy to quickly narrow the lead.

Smith birdied the first two holes, hitting a wedge to 12 inches at the first hole and a 5-iron from 195 yards to 6 feet at the par-3 second. When Varga bogeyed the third, Smith had narrowed the deficit to two strokes, just like that.

After a rare gaffe -- a three-putt bogey at the par-3 fourth -- Smith birdied the 358-yard sixth from 10 feet and made another 10-foot birdie at No. 12. Meantime, Varga followed a birdie at the par-4 seventh with a double-bogey at No. 8, a bogey at the 500-yard, par-4 ninth and another at the 124-yard 10th, one of the original holes when Bedford Springs was designed by Spencer Oldham in 1895.

That gave Smith a one-shot lead with six holes to play, and he never let go. Varga stumbled even more, making back-to-back double bogeys at Nos. 13 and 14, before Smith finished it off with a 10-foot birdie at the 595-yard 16th.

"Our section has never been stronger," Smith said. "You can just start naming the players. We have so many good mid-am players and now so many of the college players are playing great. I'm honored to be in with this field."

Better yet, at the top of the field. Again.