Golf

Not much to write about so I'll pass along this hole in one story and include a drinking story as well....

My friend John e-mailed me the other day to let me know he had accomplished every golfer's dream: A hole in one. 173 yards with a seven wood, as he put it just a bit down hill, big bunker right, mounds left with a front center pin.

He's getting a nice plaque from the course (someplace in Waldorf MD) and the ace enabled him to beat his playing partner by one shot. Very cool.

My Dad has two at Chevy Chase (#9 & #10, par 3's, one in 1975 and the other in 1976) and my Mom got one in South Carolina but the ace in an official round eludes me. I say official round because during my golf maintenance summers from 1981-1984 we used to hit drunken tee shots off #10 at Chevy Chase Club.

Here's the story: The Golf Maintenance shed had an apartment there for a couple turf students to live and I used to sleep over there a lot. My day would start at 6:30 AM and end at 3:30 PM. A lot of times I'd grab my sticks and play until dark, then grab some food and cook out while drinking a beer or several with the guys staying there. Fall asleep and do it all over the next day.

Forward to the Summer of ’84 and four of us were a little intoxicated one night and we were whacking 7 irons off #10 (150 yard par 3) like we always did at dark. We each had a couple balls so we hit them and when we went to look for them, I couldn’t find one of mine. A couple racks of suds probably weren't much help.

So I’m looking around and a friend yelled and said there was a ball in the hole and he read off the ball, which was one of the ones I was playing.

A hole in one, right?

When we were all collecting our balls to re-hit I think he found my ball and dropped it in the hole just to mess with me. He never came clean with it, but there's no way could I have hit it in from 150 yards in my Otis Campbell condition.

Twenty six years later, my friend has never come clean and that night I played along and for the hell of it all of us signed the ball. I still have it in a shoe box some place. For the record, I don't drink anymore (21 plus years, day at a time) and don't even play golf much anymore. When I do it’s a victory for me to get the ball to within twenty feet of the hole on a par three.

I do manage a few holes in one when playing mini golf with Benjamin though.