David Brown was seeking consistency when he entered the three-round West Penn Amateur golf championship last week.

He also was looking to win the championship for the second time in four years.

Half a loaf was not good enough for Brown, 46, of Upper St. Clair. He shot a three-round total of 3-under par 207, which was good enough for third place. Brown finished one shot behind the 206 totals of Nathan Smith and Mike Van Sickle, who tied for first after three rounds.

Smith won the match, which took place June 24-25 at Sunnehanna Country Club near Johnstown, in a playoff.

"You want to be a gracious loser," Brown said. "But when you lose by one shot like that after three rounds, you think about every shot you took in the tournament.

"It's 'What if I would have done this or what if I would have done that?' I'm sure it's the same way for the guys in the playoff. But that's a tough way to lose."

Brown was consistent. He shot a 1-under par 69 in the first round and a 1-over 71 in round two. He shot 3-under 67 for the third round.

The West Penn Amateur is played over two days, 36 holes the first day and 18 the second. Brown admitted that the hot weather on the first day of the tournament affected him during the second 18 holes.

"You don't want to make excuses because the weather is the same for everyone," Brown said. "But the heat was tough for me. I played OK, but not good enough.

"You just have to concentrate on each shot a little more in a situation like that and when it got warm, I didn't concentrate as well as I would have liked. I didn't have 100 percent focus and I think that hurt me more than anything else."

Brown will try to play better as the summer goes on. He plans to play in the West Penn Open, some USGA qualifiers as well as in other tournaments of the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association and will continue to work to refine his game.

A 1979 Mt. Lebanon High School grad who also graduated from Penn State, he plays out of St. Clair Country Club.

"I guess the key to my game [during the West Penn Amateur] was that I didn't have any train wrecks," Brown said. "That was probably my strength. I didn't let anything get too far away from me and I kept the course in front of me."

Brown said he struggled at times with the speed of the greens at Sunnehanna, noting that they were slower than what he is used to at St. Clair.

"They looked fast, but they turned out not to be as fast as I thought they would be," Brown said. "I just had trouble getting the ball to the hole. I guess maybe I had some trouble taking my game from St. Clair to another course because the greens are so fast at St. Clair."

When Brown's game is on, he's driving the ball accurately into the fairway and chipping well enough to give himself a good shot on the greens. He readily admits that many younger players can out-drive him, which makes it all the more important for him to stay out of trouble.

"Some of these guys can drive the ball past me by 40 yards and can do that pretty consistently," Brown said. "I try to keep it straight and hit good wedges. I did those things at Sunnehanna, but the problem for me there was getting the ball to the hole.

"I normally putt pretty well. I can't say I do anything special, but I keep it in play pretty well."

Brown said he took little satisfaction out of coming close in the West Penn Amateur, especially because he did not believe he played as well as he could have.

"In a case like that, a miss is as good as a mile," he said. "You want to be a gracious loser, but I didn't go there to finish third. I went to win. After something like that happens, you kind of focus on all the stupid things that you did or that went wrong.

"I guess that's probably a natural reaction. You always think about what you could have done better."

Brown believes he knows what it will take for him to improve the rest of the season and plans to put several of those lessons into place in weeks to come.

"You have to be able to stay focused on your next shot," Brown said. "You have to stay relaxed and develop a repeatable golf swing. You can always work to get better and that's what I'm trying to do.

"You want to be the best you can so you can compete against some of these guys."