BANGOR – For many golf pros, a tournament such as this week’s 32nd Greater Bangor Open can be a starting point for their touring careers.

For others, they may find they’re nearing the end of the line.

Mike McGee is somewhere in the middle, thinking about trying to make the PGA Tour again while also considering other options.

“I’d love to go back out there,” said McGee, who played the Tour in 1987, “but the players are so good now.

“There are some great players out here, and some of them will be on the Tour, but there are so few spots.”

McGee said he has been struggling lately with the putter, turning in rounds of 72 Thursday and 71 Friday for a two-day total of 5-over-par 143 to make the cut by two strokes for today’s final round.

The leaders in the chase for the $10,000 first prize out of the $50,000 purse are David Branshaw of Oswego, N.Y., Matt Eaton of Portsmouth, N.H., and David Cummings of Bath at 133.

Cummings, a past winner of the Maine Open, had the day’s best round, a 63. Branshaw, the first-day leader, shot a 69. Eaton had a 66.

Tied for fourth at 134 are Jim Becker of Simsbury, Conn., and Angel Franco of Asuncion, Paraguay. Becker turned in a 68 Friday, Franco a second straight 67.

Jeff Peck of Carrollton, Texas, and Joe Clark of Plymouth, N.H., are at 135, and Dave Grygiel, the head pro at Riverside Municipal Golf Course in Portland, and Joe Cioe of West Dover, Vt., are at 136. Peck and Grygiel shot 67, Clark 68, and Cioe 70.

Right now, the 39-year-old McGee is working as an instructor at the Guaranteed Performance School of Golf at Bethel Inn and Country Club.

“I started around the first of June and I’ll work through the end of September,” said McGee, who also works for the same school at Marco Island in Naples, Fla.

The move to Bethel has been a bit of a culture shock for the native of Middletown, Ohio.

“I grew up around Cincinnati. This is a different change of life,” he said. “There are no traffic lights, there’s no McDonald’s. The closest Wal-Mart is 22 miles away.

“I didn’t know places like [Bethel] existed. I love it, though.”

McGee, well-tanned but looking older than his years, thinks the move was a good idea.

“It’s helped relax me, helped me focus on my life,” said McGee. “It seems like everbody in Bethel is happy. They’re fun to be around.”

McGee knows it will be an either/or proposition as far as returning to the Tour. He will have to give up teaching, give up everything, in order to make it.

And he doesn’t know when that will be.

“When I can see myself play consistently, more comfortably, maybe that’ll be the time to try it again,” said McGee.

He played for Ohio State, graduating in 1981. His teammates included Joey Sindelar and John Cook, and the Buckeyes won the NCAA Championship in ’79. He was All-Big Ten his senior year.

In his rookie year on Tour, he played in 21 events, but made only two cuts.

He said his most noteworthy achievement was at the Federal Express/St. Jude Children’s Hospital Classic when he needed only 18 putts for one of his rounds.

“My highest score all year was 77,” he said. “I missed five cuts in a row by one stroke.

“It became more of a mental thing, and I approached it the wrong way. I think I’m mentally better now.”

Between then and now, he has worked as a club pro at a course near his hometown, and he was one of three owners of a driving range for a couple of years.

“I’ve been doing all kinds of different things,” he said. “If I had my druthers, I’d own my own driving range again.”

The Tour still tugs at him, but he hasn’t pursued it lately.

“I would have to dedicate myself to playing tournaments,” he said. “I would have to have every edge to beat these guys now, but anything’s possible still.”

CHIP SHOTS: Mike Norris of Newburgh was especially joyous about his 69 Friday. He said it was the first time he broke 70 in the GBO…. The firmness of the greens has come in for plenty of comment through the first two days. If the players try to fly the ball in all the way to the flag, it will often bounce and roll over the back of the green. They are having to make adjustments on what clubs they hit to the greens. Mike McGee said that, after one ball he hit stopped bouncing and rolling, it had traveled 215 yards. The problem was he was using a 7-iron and the green was nowhere near that far away…. David Gunas of Amston, Conn., said he was using wedges from 150 yards. He figures at his next tournament, if he tries that, the ball will come up 40 yards short, “like it should.” He shot 68 Friday, shaving eight strokes off his opening round and making the cut by a stroke…. The firmness has been good for putting, though, in general. Jim Becker was especially complimentary…. Matt Easton is playing in only his second tournament as a pro. He played at New Hampshire Monday and shot 81, missing the cut. “It was not a good debut,” he said, laughing.