It was beginning to look as if it might be a cruel and unusual form of symbolism for Nathan Smith.

Wearing a shirt with a Winged Foot logo and holding a two-shot lead heading to the final hole, Smith did the unthinkable -- at least for him -- when he snapped his tee shot at the 430-yard 18th hole at Butler Country Club into the left rough, behind a few of the trees that line the fairway.

After playing into the fairway and stubbing his third shot 25 feet from the hole, Smith wobbled for the first time all day in the 104th West Penn Open and needed a scary 3-footer to save bogey and avoid a playoff.

"He looked human after all," said amateur Sean Knapp, his playing partner and close friend.

But, as he seems to do when the pressure intensifies, Smith, 29, an amateur from Brookville, calmly made the putt and held on to win the 36-hole event by a shot over mini-tour player Bobby MacWhinnie -- becoming the first player since Jim Masserio in 1971 to win the West Penn Open and the West Penn Amateur in the same year.

"I almost turned it into a Winged Foot," Smith said, referring to Phil Mickelson's final-hole collapse at the 2006 U.S. Open.

Smith, a former U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, would not have needed to worry about the final-hole dramatics if he would have made a couple of the many birdie chances inside 12 feet he had on the back nine. As it were, he shot a final-round 69 to finish at 5-under 135, a shot clear of MacWhinnie and two ahead of Knapp and Oakmont assistant Grant Sturgeon.

Smith missed birdie putts of 12 feet at No. 11, 6 feet at Nos. 13 and 14 and 10 feet at the par-3 15th. That does not count a 25-footer at No. 10 and a 30-footer at No. 17.

He made two birdies on the back, a 5-footer at the par-5 12th after he received a free drop from the cart path that gave him more room to flop a wedge over a greenside tree and a 3-footer at the 451-yard 16th.

"I could have gotten it over the trees anyway," said Smith, who is a member at Wildwood, Pinecrest and St. Jude. "But the lie was probably better than anything."

But, instead of coasting to the finish, Smith had to make the 3-footer to avoid a playoff with MacWhinnie, who birdied three of the final four holes, including a holed wedge from 20 yards off the green at No. 18. An Upper St. Clair native who plays on various mini-tours, MacWhinnie finished at 4-under 136 and collected the $5,400 top prize because Smith is an amateur.

Knapp, 46, got off to slow start, but he also birdied the final hole to finish at 3-under 137. Host professional Rob McClellan, paired with Smith and Knapp in the final group, made a 20-footer to save par at the 165-yard 15th and matched Smith's birdie at the 16th with a 30-footer of his own.

McClellan, though, bogeyed the final two holes, each time missing the green from inside 120 yards in the left rough, to finish tied with four other players at 138.

"He plays a cat-and-mouse game," Knapp said of Smith. "In order to beat him, you're going to have to step up and punch him in the face, golf-wise. You're not going to beat him by waiting for him to come back to you."

And, yet, Smith, the 10th amateur to win the West Penn Open in its 104-year history, nearly did that at the final hole when, trying to avoid hanging his tee shot in the right trees, he rolled his driver at the last second and yanked his drive into the left rough.