FARMINGTON — Although he still drives the golf ball as far as anybody playing professional golf for a living, former BYU star Patrick Fishburn has developed another trait that has served him well in his blossoming career.
The former Fremont High golfer and basketball star from Farr West, Weber County, looks for the positives in everything that happens to him. He refuses to let things that he has no control over weigh him down.
That’s why he wasn’t rattled a few months ago when the coronavirus pandemic shut down play on the Korn Ferry Tour, and stifled the momentum Fishburn gained in tournaments in Panama, Colombia and Mexico.
“It is going to be weird playing 15 minutes away from my house (in South Ogden) and not be able to have my family come out to watch this week, The no-fans policy will really sink in this week for me. But it is what it is.” — Korn Ferry Tour golfer Patrick Fishburn
Fishburn’s wife of three years, Madison, is a nurse at McKay-Dee Hospital in her hometown of Ogden, so he was able to support her as she worked long, hard hours combating the virus in March and April.
“My philosophy is everything happens for a reason,” Fishburn said. “It was good to be home with her, but it was fun, too, because I was able to play a lot of good matches, and I feel like I made a lot of improvements during the quarantine on my putting.”
Fishburn, 28, is one of at least four golfers with Utah ties who will compete in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship Thursday through Sunday at Oakridge Country Club, joining Mike Weir, Daniel Summerhays and Preston Summerhays, the two-time defending Utah State Amateur champion. It will be the third KFT event since its return from the pandemic break, and golfers will chase an overall purse of $650,000 with $117,000 going to the winner.
“I can’t wait,” Fishburn said. “I’ve always loved playing at Oakridge. It reminds me a lot of Ogden, the club I grew up playing.”
When he played in the event two years ago, finishing 24th, Fishburn had a huge following of friends and family because of his BYU ties and because he grew up in neighboring Weber County and was a regular at Ogden Golf & Country Club.
That won’t be the case this year, because fans are not allowed on the course, not even family members.
“It is going to be weird playing 15 minutes away from my house (in South Ogden) and not be able to have my family come out to watch this week,” Fishburn said. “The no-fans policy will really sink in this week for me. But it is what it is.”
It will be the first KFT tournament of the year on the Golf Channel.
Fishburn enters the tournament ranked 38th on the KFT money list, having dropped from 29th when he failed to make the cut last weekend in St. Augustine, Florida, one of the rare times in his pro golf career that he has failed to make a cut.
“Last week was a struggle,” he said Sunday. “I haven’t missed too many cuts as a pro, but two of them have been in Florida. So I gotta figure out how to play on that Bermuda grass.”
Still, Fishburn turned it into a positive. He played Saturday with some friends at the Ogden Country Club, including Craig Sarlo, the general manager and his swing instructor, and shot a course-record 59 from the black (back) tees.
“Even with a bogey,” he said. “So hopefully that is a sign of things to come this week.”
Sarlo “gave me a little tip that probably helped,” he said.
His former caddy, childhood friend Ryan Sarlo, and a friend named Wyatt Burton were also in the group.
Fishburn’s best finish to date on the KFT was a tie for fourth with former PGA Tour star Camilo Villegas at the Country Club de Bogota (Colombia) Championship Feb. 6-9, a month or so before events in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, North Carolina and South Carolina were canceled. His caddy in Bogota was former Oakridge assistant pro Bruce Bernard, and he will use Bernard, who was Daniel Summerhays’ caddy on the KFT last year, for the remainder of the year.
Not getting the opportunity to play in Nashville, Tennessee, was difficult because that’s where Fishburn served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I was really, really looking forward to that,” he said.
Fishburn made the leap from the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada to the Korn Ferry Tour by finishing No. 5 in the season’s Order of Merit last September. He pocketed $40,500 (Canadian) by winning the Canada Life Championship in London, Ontario, the final event of the season.
“It was a thrill to accomplish one of my goals,” he said.
He is especially appreciative of a $40,000 subsidy from the Tony Finau Foundation he received last June that enabled him to play last summer and this winter without having to constantly worry about finances.
“He’s shown signs of greatness in his game,” Finau said last June while making the contribution to Fishburn’s career. “I think he just needs an opportunity. That’s exactly what we are trying to do, give the best player in Utah an opportunity to play at the highest level.”
Fishburn, 6-foot-4, was a two-sport star in high school, splitting time between golf and basketball. But a broken foot pushed him toward a scholarship at BYU and then onto a professional golf career.
“It is something I have always wanted to do, ever since I was a kid,” he said. “It is not as glamorous as people might think. You travel week after week. But it has been a lot of fun. Once you get adjusted the travel, it’s a good time.”