Just three years earlier, Todd Demsey blew a second-round lead in the Utah Open by shooting a final-round 74 and finishing in seventh place.
For Demsey, it was nearly a bad case of deja vu Sunday as he shot another final-round 74 after taking a three-shot lead into the final round of the Utah Open Players Championship at Willow Creek Country Club. But like he said afterward, "It was a little happier ending this time around."After losing his lead and falling behind by as many as three strokes, Dem-sey recovered just in time to win the tournament and the $27,000 first-place check, defeating Todd Fischer in a sudden-death playoff.
The victory was the third state open title of the summer for the 26-year-old former NCAA champion who played for Arizona State. Demsey won both the California and Arizona state opens in June, but his Utah Open triumph was worth nearly twice as much as each of the other two wins.
Two local pros, American Fork's Kim Thompson and Salt Lake's Kury Reynolds finished a stroke back at 6-under-par 210 along with Arizona's Tom Kalinowski.
Demsey seemed almost embarrassed by his performance Sunday, saying, "I haven't had many rounds where I hit so many bad shots. Obviously I'm very happy I won, but I really hit a lot of bad putts down the stretch."
Thankfully for Demsey, the rest of the contenders were just as prone to mistakes and bad shots, which made Sunday's competition look more like a game of hot potato than golf. No one seemed to want the lead as they kept throwing it back.
Demsey began by bogeying the first three holes and saw his 3-stroke lead disappear completely. Thompson brief-ly grabbed a share of the lead with a couple of early birdies but missed two 2-foot putts on the front nine to fall back.
Then Kalinowski took a turn and held the lead for several holes before bogeying the par-5 12th hole when his bunker shot hit a pine tree. He fell into a tie with Kury Reynolds, who birdied No. 11 with a 30-foot snake and No. 12 with a two-putt.
But as soon as Reynolds got a share of the lead at 7-under, he promptly four-putted the No. 14 green, even missing a putt less than a foot long for a double bogey. Kalinowksi regained the lead with a birdie at 13 but also double-bogeyed No. 14 after hitting into the trees.
That left the door open for Demsey, who had righted his sinking ship with birdies at 10 and 12. He took the lead with a birdie-2 at No. 15 when he hit his tee shot within six feet. Of course, that lead only lasted a few minutes when he missed a 3-footer at No. 16 and bogeyed.
The beneficiary of all the calamity out on the course was Fischer, who had celebrated his 29th birthday by shooting the best score of the day - a 5-under-par 67. He had teed off an hour ahead of the final group, seven shots off the lead, but as he sat in the clubhouse he suddenly found himself in a tie for the lead.
Demsey could have wrapped up the tourney with a birdie at 17 or 18, but he hit in the bunker at 17 and his 12-foot downhiller at 18 just slipped by the hole.
In the playoff, Fischer hit his drive in the right rough and ended up 20 yards short of the green in two, while Demsey rifled a 2-iron from 257 yards onto the green pin-high, 30 feet away. After Fischer hit to the back fringe 25 feet past the flag, Demsey ran his putt far enough past the hole to make it exciting when Fischer couldn't sink his birdie try. "I made an awful stroke, I just killed it," he said later.
However, he sank the birdie putt to finally wrap up the victory.
Fischer, who had won the Long Beach Open and $25,000 two weeks ago, shrugged off his playoff loss, saying, "Being seven behind, I didn't think I had a chance today, to tell you the truth. I just wanted to have a decent round."
Fischer lamented a missed two-footer at the 11th hole while he was making his final-round charge. But each of the other contenders had similar stories to tell.
"I just had two mental mistakes," said Reynolds, a former Wingopinte assistant pro who is moving to Southern California next month. "I three-putted the final hole yesterday and made that four-putt today. That 8-incher was so short, I didn't even concentrate on it."
"I had my chances today," said Thompson, whose third-place finish was his best ever in 20-plus years of playing the Utah Open. "The greens were tough today and amplified all the mistakes I made."
Kalinowski, the 29-year-old from Scottsdale who held the lead longer than anyone Sunday, wishes he could have had two shots back. One was the bunker shot at 12, when he tried to hit toward the pin instead of the middle of the green and caught a pine tree branch. The other was his tee shot at 14 when, trying to avoid the trees on the right, he "double-crossed" his 3-iron and ended up hooking the ball deep into the trees on the left.
Demsey admitted afterward he thought of 1995 when he started shakily and said "it entered my mind for a few seconds that I was going to lose it." But he quickly dispensed of such thoughts and later said, "I felt if I hung in there and kept it around par for the day, I'd have a chance."
Despite his jittery Sunday play, Demsey was was more than happy to add another victory to his collection. Already this year, he has pocketed $105,000 after suffering through a miserable rookie season on the PGA Tour last year when he earned only $41,000 in 27 events.
"This year has been a lot more fun that last year," he said. "It's a lot more fun to actually win and not get beat up in every tournament."
Still, Demsey plans to try to regain his PGA card in the fall after playing a few more state opens and small events near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
For the third straight year a son of Johnny Miller won low amateur honors as 22-year-old Scott Miller followed in the footsteps of his younger brother Andy with a three- round total of 215.
*****
Additional Information
Top finishers
Todd Demsey 67-68-74-209
Todd Fischer 72-70-67-209
Tom Kalinowski 66-73-71-210
Kury Reynolds 68-72-70-210
Kim Thompson 69-71-70-210
Jeff Klein 70-69-72-211
Jay Hunter 69-71-71-211