Back
Outside of the three I have been fortunate to make in my life so far, I have not witnessed very many holes in one. So when I got a front-row seat to one last week in Arizona, it was a rare treat.
The scene of the incident: the second hole at Mountain Shadows Golf Course, an 18-hole par-3 layout in Scottsdale, and the site of one of the Valley of the Sun's great weekly golf traditions: a Tuesday Skins game (in which top-flight pros like Max Homa, Joel Dahmen and even Jon Rahm have been known to partake). The author of the ace was a young Canadian pro named Jordan Shanks (yes, that's really his name).
We couldn't see the ball go in the hole from the tee, but we had an idea it was awfully good when Shanks' tee shot from 139 yards to a pin tucked on a small shelf on the left side of the green landed a skosh to the left and hopped seemingly right down the flagstick. When we arrived at the green and walked up, seeing no ball above ground next to the cup, it was a matter of time before the celebration was on.
The interesting thing about well-attended holes in one is that more often than not, the rest of the group celebrates it more than the golfer responsible for the masterstroke. The holer-out is generally in shock initially, while the witnesses waste no time in going nuts: a testament to the camaraderie golf fosters, even in competitive settings.
On this auspicious day, the only delay came from the fact that the hole was semi-blind. We remained appropriately demure, letting Shanks discover his ball in the cup before getting (appropriately) rowdy.
I had stumbled into a scene that plays out multiple times per month at Mountain Shadows, where dozens of low-handicappers and pros tee it up each week, hoping to hit the right shot and get the right bounce at the right moment. It was an honor to get to see it as an interloper. Best $65 I've spent on golf in a long time.
Comments (0)