Golf can be a cruel game – maybe the cruelest of games.
One week – or day, or even shot – it can be exceptional, the next abysmal.
Dusty Fielding knows that all too well.
In the fall of 2012, the journeyman pro from St. George, Utah, appeared on his way to where it is players in his golf shoes want to be – the PGA Tour, winning the first stage of qualifying on the Web.com Tour – the main feeder tour to the PGA Tour – en route to earning his card on the Web.com Tour for 2013.
But “my swing got out of wack,” and before he knew it, Fielding had lost his playing privileges on the main secondary tour and it was back to playing state opens and the like.
Such rollercoaster rides aren’t unusual for pros like Fielding, and might explain why, even after he fired a course-record 10-under-par 61 at Hillcrest Golf Club on Saturday, vaulting him into the 36-hole lead of the Navajo Trail Open, he was very even-keeled. He maintained that mindset in the final-round Sunday to win the NTO and continue his recent upswing.
Fielding shot a hard-fought even-par 71 Sunday for a tournament-record-tying 11-under 202 total and a one-shot victory over Zenon Brown of Arvada, but it wasn’t really that close.
Fielding maintained the three-stroke lead he held going into the day through 15 holes, and then extended it to four shots on No. 16. But Brown birdied the par-5 17th to cut Fielding’s lead back to three, then made about a 60-foot birdie putt on No. 18 to Fielding’s conservative bogey for the final margin, with Fielding making about a foot-and-a-half putt for the win. Miguel Griego, who shot the low round of the day (66), was a distant third at 210.
“It was a grind,” Fielding said. “And the situation (leading entering the final round) made it tougher. I tightened up a little. And when you’re out there, it’s a lot closer than it might look. I’ve seen how that (lead) can disappear in a hurry.”
Fielding won the Provo Open in his homestate the previous week, and after Sunday’s victory, appears poised for another shot at bigger things.
“I really lost it,” Fielding, 32, said of the condition of his game just a year or two ago. “But I feel like I’m on track to get back on the tour.”
He looked the part of a top-tier professional during NTO week, kicking it off with the low score of Thursday’s pro-am – a 64. While he said he hit the ball well in the first round Friday, he admittedly struggled to score and managed only a 1-under 70. But then came Saturday’s magical round.
Interestingly, he had developed a kink in his neck late in Friday’s round, and then a pounding headache, and got little sleep Friday night, and the issues persisted into his record Saturday.
Still, at no time Saturday did he consider withdrawing.
“I can’t afford to skip that kind of golf,” said Fielding, who wasn’t unlike a lot of pros in the NTO who work hard to make every dollar they can so as to play in such events in hopes of someday getting their big break.
The $5,500 first-place prize – along with the $3,000 he earned for winning in Provo – will go a long way toward that end for Fielding, who like many of the pros in the NTO field will compete in the San Juan Open in Farmington this week. And back-to-back wins should give him plenty of confidence as he heads to Farmington.
“I’m just glad I shot that 61 yesterday (Saturday),” Fielding added of his victorious NTO experience. “It gave me a little cushion.”
bpeterson@durangoherald.com
