My first ever hole-in-one came on August 28th 2019. I got to the golf course, Far Oaks Golf Club in Caseyville, IL 62232, late because of traffic and found out last minute that I was playing when a guy on my league team was not able to make it. I had not played golf in exactly a month before this night and I had no warm up and didn’t get there in time to pay for my round, I paid later, which meant I wasn’t able to get in the skins game! Eek!!! My first 4 holes I went bogey, bogey, double-par (max), bogey. The 5th hole I played was #16 a severe downhill par 3 with no room for error off the tee and a very difficult green. My range-finder was dead and my teammates was functioning but did not account for the slope. I asked my buddy Ray what the distance was and he said he was getting 165 yards. I knew it was less because of the sever slope so I guessed 150 yards and looked at him and the 2 guys we were playing against and said I’m going to just grab my pitching wedge and give it everything I’ve got! That’s my 150 yard shot. My friend Ray looked at me and said, “Well, I guess that’s one way to play it.” He was obviously being very facetious at this point. When it came time for me to tee up, I dropped my ball to the ground, rolled it up to a nice lie with 2 fingers and stepped back to align myself a target line. I stepped up to the ball and set up, took a real nice and easy back swing keeping my club low and slow the whole way back. When I reached my point to begin the downstroke I accelerated quick and ripped right through the ball, I struck it as crisp as I’ve ever hit my pitching wedge in all that I can remember! The ball went high, like really high! We all lost it in the over-cast with the darkness coming a little sooner than we’d have liked because it was getting later in the year. We were not able to follow it all the way down, but we heard an undeniable thud, that screams, “yeah, you’re on the green!” But we could not see it, not even through the range finders. I just knew the line was great so it had the potential to be close. When we got up to the green, we still didn’t see it so I grabbed my Vokey 60° with 4° bounce (my favorite club in the bag) and my Scottie Cameron putter and went to look for it. When I panned the green searching to see if it was anywhere in sight, I noticed a massive divot in the green just inches from the hole!! I walked over to it to fix it and as I bent down to repair it, I peered into hole and was relieved to see my ball resting at the bottom! It was such an amazing feeling and all 4 of us were ecstatic! It was an amazing and unifying experience!! My overall score wound up being a 50 and that was basically the only thing I did right the whole night, but I’ll never forget it! I usually score between 38 and 42, but the score didn’t even bother me, when I first started playing 7 years before this I had shot a bunch of 50’s I can remember or dwell on, but the first Ace! It’s so Amazing and special, it’s uncanny and I feel blessed to have experienced it! It had been a really rough year with a lot of extreme highs and lows and this was the perfect time for such an experience! That’s my story of my first hole-in-one!