I started playing golf when I was eight years old and I’m forty-nine now. It took me forty-one years to get my first ace!! My Dad has three total with two of them coming last year. We were league partners and I had to sit there and take his joshing over his three holes-in-one to my zero. I have been so close through the years and have many photos of balls that are sitting right next to the hole. In fact, there are so many that I created an entire photo album on social media of “almost hole-in-one’s”.
The day of my first ace is kind of ironic because my cart partner, Mike, and I were talking about hole-in-one’s when we reached our first par 3. He stated that he had zero and had only witnessed one in person so far. We talked about how many times I had been close and how I had eagled every hole on our home course at least once. The best eagle coming from a 163 yards approach shot on a par 4 with a 7 iron and one hopped it into the hole. All those great shots but couldn’t dunk one on a par 3. Mike literally said, “You’ll get one this year, for sure. I feel it”.
Fourteen holes later, I’m standing on the tee box of hole 18 at Eagle Golf Golf Course in Columbus, Ohio. The wind was howling that day with gusts around 18 mph. On this particular hole, the wind was blowing from right to left. There is water that runs down the right side of the hole and no room to miss, a bunker that sits right front of the green, and out of bounds on the left side. It really is a tough hole if you don’t hit the ball dead straight, which I never do. My natural shot shape is a right to left ball flight and is hard to play when the wind is gusts from the right like it was. I get the yardage of 169 yards and pull my 7 iron. I lined up my shot and decided I was going to play it way right and practically aimed at the water line. My Titleist AVX snapped off the clubface with the nice “whack” sound and went right down my target line and started to turn over. The wind grabbed it, like I figured it would, and the ball flew right over the flag, hitting on the backside of the slope, and started to suck back towards the pin. Everyone was quiet and I figured it was just hiding behind the pin. The rest of the group teed off and my cart partner, Mike, hit a great shot that sat about two feet from the pin that was clearly visible. As we started to walk off the tee box, my other buddy, Matt, says, “I saw yours disappear, dude. It’s in the hole”. The rest of the foursome also said the same thing that they saw it disappear in the hole. I didn’t believe them and stated that I always get unlucky and that it’s probably just tucked behind the pin.
As we approach the green, we see Mike’s ball but not mine. My stomach dropped and I start to get really excited. The boys did too and start running to the hole. I immediately grab my phone so that I can start recording a video. They beat me to the hole and see my Titelist AVX with my marking “Evil” staring up at them in the bottom of the cup. We started high fiving and cheering out. Then, we do the photo ops and still just living it up. I immediately text my wife and said, “Guess what?” And she responded, “You finally did it? Hole-in-one?”. Damn right, baby! Forty one years but damn right I did!