As usual, Patrick Fishburn’s hopes of advancing in professional golf will come down to his last opportunity.
Fishburn, a graduate of Fremont High School and BYU, missed a great chance this weekend to move up in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals standings and position himself to earn PGA Tour membership for the 2021-22 season that starts in September. His 73-71 finish dropped him into a tie for 34th place Sunday in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in Columbus, Ohio.
Fishburn was tied for third after a 67-66 start. He’s now 34th in the Finals standings. He’ll need at least a top-15 finish in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship this week in Indiana to move into the top 25 as the three-event Finals conclude.
Joshua Creel, who won this month’s Utah Championship at Oakridge Country Club in Farmington, is 18th in the standings and likely can advance to the PGA Tour merely by making the 36-hole cut in Indiana.
The KFT’s top 25 players already have qualified for the PGA Tour next season. Fishburn, Creel and others who finished from Nos. 26-75 in the regular-season standings are competing with the Nos. 126-200 players from the PGA Tour for an additional 25 cards.
Fishburn managed to extend his KFT rookie season by tying for fourth place in the last regular-season event in Nebraska. That effort moved him into the top 75, giving him a berth in the Finals and assuring him of full KFT status in 2022.
In 2019, Fishburn won the last tournament of the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada schedule, enabling him to finish in the top five for the season and advance to the Korn Ferry Tour.
Fishburn will have to perform much better in this year’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship than he did last August, when he missed the cut at Victoria National in Newburgh, Ind.