Oh Boyd! Exciting win at Provo Open

PROVO — After losing a couple of playoffs last summer, including one to his uncle at the Utah Open in August, the last thing Boyd Summerhays wanted to face Saturday at the 70th Provo Open was another extra-hole showdown.

To finish things off in the regulation 54 holes, however, he needed to roll in a 20-foot birdie putt on the final hole or he and former Southern Utah Thunderbird Nathan Page were going to keep playing. And Summerhays found himself in this situation, tied with Page at 17-under par, after three-putting the par-3 17th hole at East Bay Golf Course for bogey from about the same distance as his birdie putt on No. 18.

But calmly, and with perfect pace, the former PGA Tour player avoided the playoff and grabbed the championship trophy by rolling the birdie putt dead center into the hole.

"I wasn't going to walk around and get nervous, I knew I just had to hit the putt, and I was glad to see it go in because I didn't want to be in another playoff," Summerhays said.

Page is an amateur, so Summerhays already had the $3,200 first-place check secured prior to his trophy-winning putt. He went into the final hole leading the second-round leader and playing companion Dustin Pimm by three shots. So the $1,200 difference in first- and second-place money added no pressure to Summerhays' final putt.

"It's always nice to win, and it's important to get in that position to get the job done or not," Summerhays said.

Page, who will turn professional sometime this summer once he has some sponsors lined up, stormed into contention with a front-nine 4-under 32 on Saturday, and then stayed there with four more birdies on the back side for the day's best final-round score of 8-under 64.

"My game plan was to come out and hit some greens and make some putts. And I made a lot of putts," Page said.

But Summerhays, who started the day one behind Pimm and three ahead of Page, held off the charge with his third-straight 6-under 66. Pimm, who opened with rounds of 65 and 66, burned the cup's edge all day to limp in with a final-round 71 to finish all alone in third at 15-under par.

"I didn't putt bad, but nothing went in," Pimm said. "And I just didn't hit the ball good enough, and didn't attack the par 5s like I did in the first two rounds."

Former Utah Ute Chris Gresh finished alone in fourth at 12-under, with Clay Ogden, Tony Finau and BYU freshman Zac Blair tying for fifth at minus 11. Mark Owen and Robbie Fillmore finished tied for eighth at 10-under par.