On May 8, Sectionals came down to a nail-biter as junior Miles Edwards missed qualifying for the CIF San-Joaquin Section Masters by just one stroke – or so he thought.
Four Country Day golfers qualified for Sectionals – Edwards, sophomore Harrison Moon and freshmen John Snyder and Ted Zhou – though only Edwards and Zhou attended.
Moon was unable to attend due to an upcoming AP test, while Snyder said he’d lost confidence in his game.
“My swing somehow got messed up, and I couldn’t fix it in time,” Snyder said.
The course was narrow, and the competition was stiff, according to Edwards. Both Edwards and Zhou played well, but each faltered on one hole in particular.
Zhou shot 28 on a par 5, completely destroying his score and any shot at advancing to CIF San-Joaquin Section Masters.
And Edwards shot 11 on a par five.
“This really messed up my score,” Edwards said. “If it weren’t for this hole, I would have easily taken third. It was particularly narrow and long for a par five.”
Therefore, Edwards was relieved when the scores were revealed, showing that he was still within reach of qualifying.
Ultimately, one team would take first to advance to CIF San-Joaquin Section Masters along with three individuals.
Sacramento Adventist Academy and Ripon Christian High School tied with a total of 500 strokes, though if it weren’t for Zhou, Sac Adventist would have clinched a four-stroke victory with a total of 496 strokes.
In a shocking turn of events, Zhou spotted a Sac Adventist Capital cheating. The capital attempted to switch golf balls. Zhou notified coach Matt Vargo.
Sac Adventist was penalized an extra four strokes, bringing the team’s total score to 500, ultimately resulting in a tie, though Zhou didn’t know this would be the effect.
As a result the two teams played one hole to determine the victor. Ripon Christian won.
But this led to further complications with regard to the individual standings.
When a team advances to Section Masters, all members of the team advance, taking any of their highly ranked individual players out of the individual competition.
One of the three individual players ahead of Edwards was a Sac Adventist Capital.
So when Sac Adventist lost the team competition, the individual Sac Adventist Capital retained his number two seed.
Thus Edwards’s hopes of advancing were thwarted. He was now out of the running for placement in the top three and tied for fourth place.
Following the announcement, Vargo said he was very impressed with Edwards’s performance.
“Had Miles advanced, he would be one of two Cavaliers – the other being Mark Davidson (‘06) – to ever make it this far in Country Day history!”
Davidson, now a technology consultant, spent a year as an assistant golf pro at Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia.
Edwards had mixed emotions about his finish.
“I didn’t really know how to feel,” he said soon after the tournament. “I was disappointed that I hadn’t qualified but happy-ish that I had placed so well, just not well enough.”
Little did Edwards know, he would indeed move on to CIF San-Joaquin Section Masters.
On May 10, two days after the tournament, Edwards was notified by Vargo that one of the top three had dropped out.
Edwards was now tied for third with a score of 84.
The tie was settled based on the boys’ scores on the back nine holes from the tournament. This would determine who would advance to the CIF San-Joaquin Section Masters on May 15.
Edwards faltered on hole eight but finished strong in the back nine, where he shot 40 while his opponent shot 41, putting him in third place.
But had they decided the third-place finisher based on the scores of the front nine, Edwards would have lost.
“Basically, I just got lucky,” he said.
—By Briana Davies
