Published: June 29, 2009 10:44 pm      

GOLF: Former grounds worker qualifies for Porter Cup

LEWISTON — All those mornings on the mower paid off for John Edwards.

Edwards shot a 3-under par 67 on Monday at Niagara Falls Country Club to lead eight qualifiers for next month’s 51st Porter Cup.

What Edwards, 27, didn’t know about the NFCC layout from trying to qualify for the Porter Cup every year since 2001, he learned during the two summers he worked on the grounds crew.

“You notice everything after dozens and dozens of times going around the course,” said Edwards, who won a sectional title for Grand Island in 1999, and now lives in Niagara Falls.

Edwards will be joined in the prestigious amateur tournament field by defending club champion Raman Luthra, Jake Katz, Chris Stoddard, J.P. Kircher, Chris Malec, Matt Donahoe, and Brett Nymeyer.

This was the first time Edwards broke par in the qualifying event. He joked that the entry fees he paid the last eight years amounted to “a lot of donations for the club.”

“I didn’t think it was going to happen,” Edwards said. “It was unexpected. Anybody can do this on any day, if you get hot with your irons and roll in the short putts. The high irons were the good ones for me. I was all over the flag. The birdies I made all came from within five feet.”

While Edwards snuck out to play a few extra holes in the afternoon, confident there wouldn’t be eight more players coming in at 67, Matt Donahoe waited nervously by the scoring tent to see if his 69 would hold up. Had anybody in the final 15 groups broken par, Donahoe, Malec and Nymeyer would have been forced into a playoff.

“By far, this is the best thing I’ve done in my golf career,” said Donahoe, 19, the son of former Buffalo Bills team president Tom Donahoe.

Donahoe, who had Frank Sacheli, his former golf coach at Nichols School, on his bag, birdied two of the final three holes to make the cut.

“It’s fun to watch the local kids do well here,” said Sacheli, who also coached Luthra at Nichols.

Luthra, Katz, Stoddard and Kircher all shot 68.

“I told myself I was playing 68 as even par,” said Katz, a Williamsville native who plays at Binghamton University and had attempted to qualify three times before.

Stoddard, a Jamestown native who plays at St. Bonaventure University, qualified last year, shooting 69 under tougher playing conditions, but said he found it harder to repeat the feat.

“You put a lot of pressure on yourself to do it again,” he said.

Each of the first-time qualifiers said Monday’s round was a career highlight.

“This is huge,” Katz said. “Every person at Westwood, my home course, has been asking me, ‘When is the qualifier?’ To have such a big tournament, the No. 1 stroke play event in amateur golf, 20 minutes from where I live, and to be able to play in it, is a dream come true.”

E-mail reporter Jonah Bronstein at jonah.bronstein@niagara-gazette.com