I played in my weekly Thursday Night Men's League and I'm Even Par through 3 holes (I'm a +2 hdcp) and come to the par 3 Fourth Hole. I had the honors. The pin was right in the heart of the green, playing 172 yards with a gentle breeze coming in off the left shoulder. This yardage is a stock 8 iron (165-ish yard club). I was not trying to overpower the shot because it is a small undulating green that a miss left or long falls off and makes for a challenging up-and-down and I knew that if I landed it on the front edge the bounce would put me in the middle of the green with a good chance at birdie.
I took my swing and just caught it a groove low on the face but it was on my intended line with a good trajectory. Immediately after the strike, I yelled for it to "get a bounce" thinking it was going to come up short and hoping it would just end up somewhere on the green. My Pro V1 #26 landed on the front edge and took the bounce I was hoping for to put me in the middle of the green. It took one bounce and released right at the hole and disappeared!
I was the youngest guy in the group at 41 years old and the shadows were creeping across the green, so we didn't see it very clearly. No one was sure if it went in the hole or raced past to fall off the back. One of my playing partners said he thinks it is just past the hole. I quickly grabbed my rangefinder to get a better look and didn't see it anywhere on the green. My heart started to race and adrenaline start to pump throughout my body. Now I had to wait for my 3 playing partners to hit their shots before I could race up there to locate my ball.
I love to walk when I play while everyone else rides. So I am running to get to the green. One of my other playing partners gets to the green and walks to the hole, looks down, then looks to me and said, "It's in there." Even more excited, I increase my pace a little more. I get to the hole, look down, and sure enough, it was in the bottom of the cup with the Titleist logo and #26 looking up at me as if to be saying "Here I am!"
Completely ecstatic, we all start to cheer and give high five and fist bumps! The group playing behind us is just getting to the 3rd green and starts throwing their hands up in the air sharing the celebration (probably because they know drinks are coming at the end of the round)!
Just an absolutely great feeling to get a hole-in-one in the company of friends in the weekly league!
*Side note - the hole I got the ace on, during the weekend is the course's betting hole where a small monetary donation followed by an ace, wins $10,000. There are digital video cams rolling all the time. I've inquired about getting the footage of my remarkable shot, but the company doesn't release the videos anymore - bogus!
This is my second hole in one of the year and fourth overall. Before my two aces this season, I had gone 20 years without an ace and now I've had two in the span of 4 months.