Mr. Hole and One

On the Saturday before Memorial Day in 1997 my wife Carol and I were out hitting the rummage sales when I came across a set of old, used golf clubs for $40. It even included nine golf balls. When the owner offered it to me for half price I bought it.

When I got home I called my brother Jamie and we made arrangements to go golfing on Monday morning, Memorial Day, at Pebblewood Golf Club in Bridgman, Michigan. I hadn't played in almost thirty years.

In fact, my first and only year of playing a lot of golf was in 1966, when I was fifteen. That summer our dad would drop my brother Evan and me off at Martin Hills Golf Club, a 9-hole course, on his way to work at 6:30 in the morning, and we'd play all day until he picked us up in the afternoon after work. We'd bring a sack lunch for our only break all day. One Monday we trolled the woods near some of the holes after the weekend play and found 29 golf balls, more than enough to last us all summer long!

We often played the first nine before the greens were mowed, still with dew on them, much to the dislike of the greenskeeper! It was not unusual for us to play at least 36 to 45 holes in one day. I remember once we got 45 holes in by 3 pm but had to wait two hours for dad to pick us up after work because it started raining.

A good nine hole score for us was in the upper forties (par was 36) but usually we didn't break fifty. Even so, we had a lot of fun even if we only played once or twice a week.

After that summer I played maybe once a year for the next couple of years and that was it. No more golf until I found that set at that rummage sale.

I went to the driving range on Sunday afternoon to get reacquainted with the golf swing. I didn't want my first one to be on the first tee. The results were less than inspiring to say the least.

The weather Monday morning was very cool but we played anyway. Par was 68 but I shot 120, even with a couple of pars, lost all nine golf balls I had, and had to borrow a couple more from Jamie so I could finish the round. But I was hooked, and was eager to play again.

Unfortunately, the next time didn't come until two months later, in July. We played The Oaks Golf Club, in St. Joe, this time with our father and another brother, Ernie. This was a much harder golf course, and I shot 75 on the front nine but recovered enough on the back nine to have a total of 130. Pretty bad but still a lot of fun.

Jamie and I only got to play one more time all summer. The next year we only played three or four times, and in 1999 we only got to play twice, clearly not enough for me. And each time, even with coupons, was fairly expensive. Something had to be done. We either had to find an economical way to play more golf to make it worth our while or just drop it altogether.

I suggested we consider joining a league. I called Pebblewood and found out they had a men's independent league that played on Monday afternoons. For the next season greens fees and league dues would be $220, which would allow us to play nine holes every Monday from April until the snow flew. It would essentially be a Monday membership. Jamie and I could clearly get in a lot of golf pretty cheaply, so we signed up as a two-man team for the 2000 season.

There were twelve teams, and with the season split into two halves of eleven weeks each, plus a playoff week, we would play for 23 weeks, almost six months of golf. Not bad for Michigan. We would play each team twice, once each half.

Even though the ages of the players in the league ranged from the late 20s to the early 70s, we were all more or less at the same skill level. No one took themselves or their games all that seriously, and we always had a few laughs while playing. Even so, Jamie and I hoped to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack and not embarrass ourselves.

About halfway through the first half my brother Ernie wanted to upgrade to a new set of irons. I bought his old set for $100 and started using them in June. As the first half of the season progressed, being able to play regularly caused Jamie and me to improve quite a bit. We ended up in the upper third of the league standings at the end of the first half.

Jamie was a more consistent and much better golfer than I was. I was all over the place. One time on the back nine I had five pars but was thirteen over par on the other four holes. I was consistently inconsistent.

August 28th was a very windy day. We were playing the front nine, and Jamie was having his best round of the year and was on his way to breaking 40 for the first time. I definitely wasn't. A good score for me would be 45, but it looked like I wasn't even going to break 50. On the 6th hole I had another triple bogey and was getting frustrated.

The 7th hole was a 157-yard par 3, over a pond to a two-tiered green surrounded by trees. Our opponents teed off first and both missed the green. Then it was my turn. Normally this distance would require me to use a 7 iron, but due to a strong tail wind I chose the shorter 8 iron instead, since the wind would likely carry the ball further. I clipped the ball so cleanly I didn't even feel it hit the club face, and my ball flew high and straight toward the flag stick.

Being late August, the green was in the shade and so when the ball fell below the tree line it was hard to follow, but I saw it hit the green and then appear to roll out of sight behind the flag stick. Good, I hit a green for a change.

The course ranger happened to be near the green and saw the shot, and then yelled something to us. What did he say? The ball went in the hole? Really? Our opponents congratulated me and patted me on the back, and then I realized what had just happened. I had just hit a hole in one!

We didn't actually see the ball go in the hole but the ranger did. Everyone started yelling, getting the attention of the guys on the 10th green, 11th fairway, 13th fairway, and 8th tee box, all of which were near the 7th green.

When I got to the green I saw a huge dimple on it about six inches from the hole where my ball had landed before it popped in. I pulled the flagstick out, and my ball popped out and onto the green. Everyone cheered.

Other than the ranger, who had hit one himself years before, no one had ever seen a hole in one in person before, and neither had I. It was all so surreal. I couldn't believe this was really happening. It was like I was dreaming.

Later, as we drove our cart down the 9th fairway, someone drove by to touch my arm for luck. When we got to the 9th green, our final hole for the day, the rest of our league that had finished before us was there waiting and clapping. Suddenly I was a minor celebrity! Jamie did have his best round of the summer that day, firing a 39, while I still didn't even break 50, but no one noticed.

I found out that tradition said I was supposed to buy a round of drinks for the league, but I didn't have enough money on me. The clubhouse had some paperwork for me to fill out that they turned in to the local newspaper, and the following Monday there was a notice in the Sports section about my ace.

That very same Monday happened to be Labor Day, an off day for our league, so we had a best-ball scramble instead, just for fun. On the third hole it turned out that my tee shot was the best one of the three of us playing together, so we all played our second shots from where my ball was. My second shot was the only one to get on the green, so we used my shot again. I had the honors and putted first, and amazingly drained the putt for a natural birdie. One of the guys on the next tee box asked if my back was sore. When I asked why he replied, “For carrying those two guys you're playing with!” We all had a good laugh. No one had ever said anything like that about my game before.

Realistically, as far as I'm concerned, a hole in one, also called an ace, isn't as impressive as an eagle, which is basically an ace without the benefit of a perfect, teed up lie. On a par four, an eagle would be when someone hits his tee shot and then hits his second shot onto the green and in the hole. On a par five, an eagle wouId be when someone hit his third shot onto the green and in the hole. I actually did see my father hit an eagle from the rough, under trees and over a pond to a very sloped 13th green at Pebblewood from about 120 yards out. Now that was impressive. And somehow we could tell as soon as his ball hit the green it was going to roll into the hole.

Nor is an ace as impressive as bowling a perfect 300 game, because as you are rolling those strikes, on your way to 12 in a row, the pressure starts to build and you get more and more nervous, especially if a crowd gathers. Some have said they couldn't even feel the ball in their hand toward the end, they were so nervous. It's not unusual for someone's 12th attempt to not even hit the head pin, and maybe even go in the gutter. If you hear that someone rolled a 291, you know he got only one pin on his last ball, barely avoiding the gutter. That's what nerves can do to you. My brother Jamie has bowled more 300 games than anyone I know.

But a hole in one is just pure luck that's over before you even know it. And mine proves you can get lucky no matter how poorly you're playing at the time. But it does have a way of instantly lifting your spirits.

We went on a hot streak after that, winning by lopsided scores every week, and quickly climbed up in the standings. By late September we were closing in on first place for the second half. Winning that would put us in a playoff for the league's overall first place trophy.

We were rained out on the next to last league night and so rescheduled to play the following Saturday since everyone could make it that day. We played well again, winning handily, and played our final regular round two days later, on the first Monday night in October.

Playing the last two rounds so close together helped keep us sharp, I think, and we again won handily, and took first place for the second half by a single point. We were in the playoffs for overall first place on the following Monday night.

Carol had a doctor's appointment all the way across the state in Ann Arbor at 11 am that Monday. I took a vacation day from work to take her. On the way to Ann Arbor we got a flat tire, so I put the small doughnut spare on and continued for another hour to Ann Arbor doing 55 miles per hour. That's probably too fast for the doughnut but was the minimum for I-94. If that doughnut blew we would be stranded.

Carol's appointment morphed into two and so took longer than we expected. When we finally left for home I pushed it a little while still trying to be safe. After three hours we finally made it all the way back home on that doughnut, and then I changed cars and headed to the golf course. I got there just before 5:30, the latest you could tee off. Another five minutes and we would have had to forfeit.

The rest of the league had long since teed off, and finished, and had left for our awards banquet, which was that same night, so it was just Jamie and me against the winners of the first half for the championship. There was no time to warm up since the daylight was already beginning to fade, being the second week in October.

After three and a half hours of doctor appointments, and another four hours of driving on a doughnut, and realizing we could do no worse than second place, far better than we had hoped for at the beginning of the season, I was totally relaxed, and so for the first time all season I actually broke 40, shooting a 38. Jamie shot 42. We were a combined 25 strokes under our handicap and blew our opponents away, the only time we beat them all year.

One of them got so mad he broke one of his clubs in two over his knee on the last hole. When we heard it snap and looked over and saw what he had done we did our best to stifle our chuckles. But that was hard to do. It was also hard to believe all this was really happening.

When we finally got to the banquet everyone was shocked to discover we had actually won. It was as if we had snookered the league and had stolen the first place trophy. Now we had to play again the next year just to prove it wasn't a fluke.

All in all, it had been quite a year for us, and especially for me. The following week was my 50th birthday, so Carol and the kids threw a birthday bash for me. The cake they ordered had a golf motif that was supposed to say, “Happy Birthday Mr. Hole in One” written on it, but the decorator wrote, “Happy Birthday Mr. Hole and One” instead. Obviously, she wasn't a golfer. The cake still tasted good.

Although Jamie and I are still playing in that league, we have never come in first again. Maybe that was a fluke. And I have never had another hole in one. At least, not yet. But whenever I see one on TV I can always say I know how that feels! And at least once a summer someone (not me) will still bring up the one I hit.