My First Hole-In-One, May 31st, 2014.
It all started 39 years ago at Buck Hill Golf Club in Buck Hill Falls up in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. My Dad has been going to the Annual Pocono Open for 25 years now, and finally it's my turn and it's my first time going.
This is just an annual tournament with guys coming from all over the country.
One of the big tournaments, and something I am apart of because I am from Indiana. We have an "inside" tournament of Team Indiana vs. Team New York. Always great fun.
Thursday, May 29th was my first time checking out the beautiful scenery of Buck Hill Golf Club.
Buck Hill has three different courses, Red, White and Blue.
Friday, May 30th, I played in a foursome with my Dad. After the first day, our handicaps change making us not able to play together the next day.
Finally the day has come up my first Ace!
May 31st, 2014. My Dad is actually in the foursome behind me. I step onto the tee box of the Blue Course, Hole #5. A Par 3, 143 yards and the wind is blowing left to right about 15-20mph. Always take my two practice swings, step back away from the golf ball to line everything up from behind. Stepped up to the ball.... and the wind stops.. (I have never been so relaxed).... And I take the shot.
I have just taken a few golf lessons before the trip and the first thing that was changed was my grip. I played baseball my entire life, middle, high school and college... so when I played golf, I always swung with a baseball, 10 finger grip. Now I am swinging with an overlap grip, which is helping me up draw on the golf ball.
The shot goes into the air and is going right towards the bunker on the right side of the green. Right away I whisper the words everyone whispers when they know it's going in the sand (don't need to repeat that). But the draw starts to come into play.
The green was a slope from right to left and the pin was right in the middle of the green. This was also the hole for "Closest-To-The-Pin".
The ball hits right on the top bank of the right side of the green, and starts to roll down the slope... the only thing going through my mind was, "Hey, I have a change for closest to the pin"...
It's rolling and rolling... "That's going to go in", one of the guys in my foursome said... and the golf ball disappears and drops into the hole.
From the time the ball hit the slope to the time it dropped into the hole, everything was in slow motion.
I start yelling, the club goes flying into the air and I take off running! But not towards my green... I go running backwards to my Dad's green (where he is starting to set up for a shot). Of course the entire mountain heard us yelling so they were already looking up.. I get onto the green and see where he is and yell...
"TILLERY!!!!... HOLE! IN! ONE!"
There was a little pause and you can see my Dad's head turn to Tommy B. who was in his cart and you hear.. "YEEEEHAAAAW!"
Now we are headed to the green to see if it's actually in the hole.
And there it was!
Titleist ProV1, 39th Annual Pocono Open on the side of the golf ball, and my lucky 4 leaf clover imprinted on both sides of the ball on top of the numbers.
It was my first hole in one, my first time at Buck Hill and my first time being apart of the Annual Pocono Open.
On this day due to this hole-in-one, I won:
- Closest to the pin
- The ONLY skin for the day
- Low Net Score
- and everyone chipped in $5, but of course I had to buy first round at the bar, but everyone one said, "It's your first hole in one, you keep the money and enjoy". My bar tab was only $20.
Wonderful first time! And I will never forget it!