Dan McCarthy caught a late flight Sunday night from Utah, landed in Detroit at 11 p.m. and drove five hours to Pittsburgh, arriving at his hotel at 3:30 p.m. He got two hours of sleep before heading to the Pittsburgh Field Club for his 8:40 a.m. tee time in the Frank B. Fuhrer Invitational.
For McCarthy, a member of the PGA Tour’s Korn Ferry Tour, that was a good travel schedule.
At least he didn’t have to drive from Kansas.
“I had my clubs and all my clothes,” McCarthy said. “That was good.”
Traveling to Western Pennsylvania to play in the $200,000 three-day tournament has been an adventure out of “Space Jam” the previous two years for McCarthy. But he didn’t let it bother him in 2018, when he won the $40,000 first prize with borrowed clubs and WalMart-bought clothes after his flights were rerouted. It didn’t bother him last year he made his tee time and contended after driving 15 hours from Kansas because of cancelled flights.
And it didn’t let it bother him Monday, either, when he followed an opening 68 with a 64 in the afternoon to shoot 8-under 132 and take the 36-hole lead.
“It was a relatively calm trip,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy holds a one-shot lead on Irwin native and mini-tour player Dan Obremski (67-66-133) and four shots on defending champ Michael Gligic (71-65), a PGA Tour member who stopped here before heading to the tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.
Gligic went to the Detroit Golf Club last weekend to play a couple practice rounds, just so he could come to the Field Club and try to win the $40,000 first prize and pay homage to the tournament host.
“I’ve been coming for six years, when Mr. Fuhrer gave me a chance back then, and I’ll keep coming as long as he’ll have me,” said Gligic, who earned a battlefield promotion to the PGA Tour after finishing in the top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019.
Former PGA Tour player Steve Wheatcroft, a two-time winner on the Web.com (now Korn Ferry) Tour who lost in an eight-hole playoff to Gligic last year, shot 71-73—144.
Riley Wheeldon, a native of British Columbia, Canada, who played collegiately at Louisville, is a member of PGA Tour Canada (McKenzie Tour), but that tour has been canceled this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. None of that tournament rust, though, showed up in the first round when he eagled two of the three par-5s and shot 65 to take the first-round lead. He is tied with Gligic at 136.
Former three-time tournament champ David Bradshaw, who injured his ACL and meniscus in a skiing accident in the spring, shot 64 in the afternoon and is alone at 137.
“I’m trying to fight through it,” Bradshaw said. “It hurts when I walk down hills.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac
First Published: June 30, 2020, 1:36 a.m.
