Published: July 25, 2008 10:57 pm      

PORTER CUP: Harvey still having fun

LEWISTON — The last time Bill Harvey went around the Niagara Falls Country Club course twice in one day, it was in the 1976 Porter Cup.

The tournament opened with a double round that year and Harvey, then 46 and more than twice the age of some of his rivals, shot rounds of 68 and 70 to put himself one stroke off the lead at the midway point. He ultimately finished tied for fourth behind Scott Simpson.

On Friday, Harvey “played” a double round, this time in the role of a father hanging on every shot by his 30-year-old son, Scott. The elder Harvey patrolled the course in a cart, alternately agonizing over a less-then-solid shot and quietly cheering the ones that dropped for a birdie or a par.

Bill Harvey is known to longtime Porter Cup observers for two things — winning the 1963 championship in a five-hole playoff, the longest tournament in history, and having fun on the course no matter what was going on with his game. He smiled frequently, had fun with the players in his group and interacted with spectators.

“I don’t like quiet golf — never did,” he said many times.

Recalling those days, Harvey said, “I had fun; it was fun. I loved amateur golf. It’s just the way it was.”

Scott has a little of his father in him, at one point needling his dad during the afternoon round in the rain-plagued 50th Porter Cup. He had just birded the always-difficult par-4 17th hole and was ready to tee it up on the 18th.

He looked over at his dad parked along the cart path and said, “I birdied 17. I never saw you do that.”

Bill just smiled, maybe because Scott wasn’t born the last time he did it.

“I always wanted to play in some of the tournaments my dad played in,” said Scott, who started hitting the ball around when he was 3 or 4 years old, but not seriously until about two years ago. “I always watched him in tournaments like the Porter Cup and it was a dream of mine to play in this tournament.”

Bill Harvey played in the Porter Cup 30 times, starting in 1961, according to the tournament program. The last time he played here, he said, was 1997 in the Senior Porter Cup. He always brought his family with him.

“Scott was a year old, not even that, when he first came up,” Harvey said. “He was born in April and we all came up in August.”

Scott often caddied for his dad, so he knows the course a little bit, which helps in his first Porter Cup.

“I always came up here and goofed around and watched,” Scott said. “When I got old enough, he let me caddy. I lugged that big bag around.”

“I didn’t pay him, either,” Bill pointed out, puffing on another cigarette.

“Yeah, that was the bad part,” Scott joked.

Even as a kid, Scott Harvey was impressed with the tournament and the course.

“Man, it was like the Masters,” he said, the excitement rising in his voice. “The golf course, the lush green grass.”

Scott was medalist in sectional qualifying for the U.S. Amateur last year with rounds of 67 and 66. He missed by several strokes of making it to match play in the tournament that determines the national champion.

He has had success in some lesser events, winning the Griffin Cup this year and the North Carolina Players Championship the past two years. He also qualified for match play in the North and South Amateur, one of the nation’s elite tournaments.

Scott bogeyed the final five holes of Fridays’ morning round, frustrating himself and his father.

“The greens are still soft and the wind is tough when you’re not hitting it as well as you would like,” he said.

Bill Harvey owns a driving range in Greensboro, N.C. that he opened in 1960. Now, Scott is the manager.

Back in the early days, Harvey helped get the Porter Cup going by bringing up talented amateurs from the south to play in it. Now, all these years later, he has brought up yet another one. And that keeps the game fun for him.