If there was ever a player capable of making up ground in a hurry, it is Dan McCarthy.
He trails 54-hole leader David Bradshaw by six shots heading into the final round of the $200,000 Frank B. Fuhrer Invitational at the Pittsburgh Field Club, a position not too dissimilar to last year when he overcame a three-shot deficit on the final day to win the $40,000 first prize.
But it’s not so much how McCarthy, who is 19th on the points list on the Korn Ferry Tour and in good position to earn a battlefield promotion to the PGA Tour, keeps finding himself in contention at the Field Club. It’s how he manages to find his way to the tournament despite the travel obstacles he has had to endure each of the past two years.
And they have been daunting, to say the least.
“It escalates every year what I’ve had to do to get here,” McCarthy said. “I might have to do a better job scheduling next year.”
What McCarthy went through to make his first-round tee time Monday in the Fuhrer Invitational makes last year’s odyssey seem tame by comparison.
He was playing in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Wichita (Kan.) Open on Sunday when the final round was delayed five hours because of weather, pushing McCarthy’s tee time to 2:50 p.m. local time. Had he played, McCarthy would have missed his flight to Pittsburgh and not been able to play in Fuhrer’s invitational. And he didn’t want to do that.
“Frank gave me the opportunity to play years ago when I didn’t have any status anywhere,” McCarthy said. “I always want to make time for him and come here as long as he’ll have me.”
So McCarthy withdrew from the final round. Unfortunately, shortly after withdrawing, his flight out of Wichita was canceled, leaving him with few options. He considered renting a private plane, but the cost was too expensive. The only other option was to rent a car and drive overnight to Pittsburgh.
McCarthy encountered a similar problem last year after playing in the same Wichita Open. His connecting flight from Dallas to Pittsburgh was canceled, forcing him to be re-routed to Toledo. He arrived at 1 a.m., but his golf clubs and clothes did not. He rented a car, drove to Pittsburgh and stopped at an all-night Walmart to buy a golf outfit. He arrived at the Field Club at 6:30 a.m., showered and used borrowed clubs for his 8:27 tee time.
This was worse. McCarthy drove 15 hours from Wichita, stopping four or five times for gas and food. He arrived at the Field Club at 6:45 a.m., showered and made his 9 a.m. tee time with no sleep. He shot 73 in the morning, 67 in the afternoon.
“I was actually OK, energy-wise,” McCarthy said. “I’m a road warrior. I was all right the last couple hours. I got a little delirious, but at that point the sun was coming up and I was OK.”
McCarthy caught on up on some sleep Monday night and posted a round of 70 that included one birdie, one bogey and 16 pars. That left him at 210, tied with four others, including former PGA Tour player Steve Wheatcroft, who took 36 putts in a round of 73.
Bradshaw, a three-time winner of the event who won his 11th West Virginia Open title last week, shot 69 to finish at 6-under 204, five shots clear of Ryan Lenahan, a part-time player on Canada’s Mackenzie Tour. Only the legendary Sam Snead has won more West Virginia Open titles (17) than Bradshaw.
Bradshaw will have to keep an eye on McCarthy, who made up three shots in the final five holes last year to win the title.
“I’m a front-runner for sure,” Bradshaw said. “I’m not a come-from-behinder. I like to lay in front, stay patient and make a bunch of pars.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac
First Published: June 25, 2019, 8:23 p.m.