It's been a bit too long since I've written one of these. The first and only golf column I've written this year came shortly after accomplishing my goal of breaking 100, which I did in my first two full rounds of the season with scores of 95 and 92. I left off that column by saying, "I can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store," and, man, if I only knew.
Since then my game took a bit of a backslide, as I'm told often happens after getting a personal-best score, with a few noteworthy exceptions, not least of which being that I got a hole in one.
Trust me, I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t have witnesses on hand, those being my wife and my good friend who was visiting from Calgary for a weekend of golf.
It occurred on the first round of the weekend where the three of us played the front nine at Purcell. I was off to a rather annoying start, having three putted for bogey on the second hole. We stepped up to the third hole, around 165 yards from the blue tees to a front pin, according to my Garmin watch.
I pulled out my eight iron, set up for a high draw and managed to execute one as well as I ever have. While it was in the air I yelled “Be the numberrrr” — a reference to a video my visiting friend had sent me of Bubba Watson mocking Patrick Reed back in 2015.
It looked good from the start and just kept getting better, hitting the front right edge of the green. As it rolled towards the pin the excitement grew, until we watched it fall in the hole. I dropped my club like a batter after a home run and sprinted towards the green. Sure enough the ball had indeed gone in. I couldn’t believe it.
My friend said something along the lines of, “What is going on, I’ve been in Kimberley for like an hour.”
The first person I texted was my dad, telling him, “You’re not going to believe what just happened.” He turned 70 this year and has golfed most of his life and has never had an ace. He was very excited to hear I’d got one.
My coach Simon Jones got the next text and I was proud to see he shared that myself and another of his students had made hole in ones within the same week. The days after I posted a picture by the hole with my finger held up felt like a birthday — I received a flood of comments and messages of congratulations. Some prefaced with curses to my name by my golfing friends.
I was soon brought back down to earth and humbled by the almighty Golf Gods. On the next par three I hit a nice six iron that caught a tree dropping me down into the fairway. I then shanked my 40 yard pitch shot into the next fairway and — yada, yada, yada — I took an eight on the hole. Three over par through two par threes with a one on one of them.
The next day we played Trickle Creek bright and early teeing off at 7:15 a.m., quite possibly the earliest I’ve ever played. I didn’t play as well as I would have liked, but my friend, who I hadn’t played with in two years, told me he noticed a huge difference in my game. The lessons and regular play have definitely helped.
I wound up making a 10 on the eighteenth hole to shoot 100 on the nose. The next day I lipped out my par putt on the par five eighteenth at St. Eugene to also shoot an even 100. Had I not already shot in the 90s for the first time, these two final holes would have been soul crushing.
Since then my play has been pretty disappointing, but overall I can always tell I’ve improved and am moving closer to being able to play better consistently. That has been the biggest challenge, as I’m aware it is for many amateur golfers. One to three bad holes tend to destroy my score.
The important thing is I’ve been having a blast with it and when I’m enjoying it the most I tend to play a bit better as well. I finally shot in the nineties again this past Sunday, at Trickle Creek where I broke 100 for the first time earlier this year, with another score of 95. I’ve also had a couple of shots on par threes that made my heart skip a few beats and ended up a few feet from the hole Close, but no cigar. However if my ace at Purcell winds up being the only one I ever get, I will still be very happy about it. I’ll certainly never forget that feeling.
A quick Google search indicates that the rough odds of an amateur golfer getting a hole in one are 12,500 to one. I wonder what the odds of a golfer breaking 100 for the first time and getting an ace within the span of a month are?
