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Zac Blair birdied the 18th hole, then playfully punched his caddie as he stood on the green, having completed his first tournament as a PGA Tour member.
The former Fremont High School and BYU golfer had faded from second place to a tie for 12th in the final round of the Frys.com Open, but the scene of a smiling Blair as captured by the Golf Channel showed anything but disappointment Sunday. And how could he be unhappy?
Blair has come a long way this year — especially, in the last three months. He launched the 2014-15 PGA Tour schedule with a tie for 12th place, earning $117,600 at Silverado Resort in Napa, California.
That's a solid start for both Blair and West High grad Tony Finau, who moved up Sunday with a 68. Now that he's playing the PGA Tour, Blair has chosen to be listed as Zachary in official accounts. He's still "Zac" (or "Z") to his friends.
Blair closed with a 74, fading in his final-round pairing with Sang-Moon Bae, the winner. Yet it was a memorable weekend for Blair, whose former BYU teammates visited him in Napa prior to playing this weekend in the University of California's tournament.
The short version of Blair's 2014 story is he qualified for the PGA Tour by finishing second in the Web.com Tour Championship last month. That required "the best nine holes, probably, of my life, probably at the biggest moment of my golf life," he recently told The Salt Lake Tribune.
There's more to the tale, including how he started the season by playing PGA Tour Latinoamerica, then found his way into some Web.com Tour events in July and kept going, thanks to his performance.
Finau's story includes more standard stuff, because he was fully exempt for the Web.com Tour from the start and played well all season. He made a jump after aligning with instructor Boyd Summerhays in June, posting three top-five finishes with a victory in northern California.
Johnny Miller, a part-owner and redesigner of Silverado, served as the Frys.com Open host. Miller is chairman of the Utah Junior Golf Association, which claimed five alumni in the field — counting Miller's son, Andy, a former PGA Tour player who made a comeback appearance in Napa.
Miller (73-78) missed the cut, but Orem native Scott Pinckney tied for 31st in his PGA Tour debut and Fruit Heights resident Daniel Summerhays, now a tour veteran, tied for 46th.
Blair, Finau, Pickney and Summerhays are entered in this week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas.
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