The "lost" albatross
By Jon Paul J On April 30, 2018
I layed up in the fairway on the short par four 14th (297 yd) at Teton Lakes Golf Course in Rexburg, ID on 7 Apr 2018. There was no one behind me, so while I was passing the Men's tees I decided to just try to see if I could make the green from there (237 yd). There was a 15 mph headwind that afternoon. I grabbed one of my retired balls from my bag--a Titleist Pro V1x that had made it through a complete round--teed it up, hit a solid 3W, and watched it disappear toward the green. The green is surrounded on three sides by water, and as I played my first ball onto the green, I looked around for the second ball, couldn't see it, and figured it must have been blown in the water. I fished about six balls from the lake, but none of them were mine so I gave up on finding it. I two-putted the first ball for par without pulling the flag, and when I went to collect it, there was the second ball in the bottom of the cup! My first thought was that someone was playing a prank on me. There was a twosome a couple of holes ahead of me, and I thought maybe they left a ball in the hole to be funny. But there it was with my scuffed JP initials on it, so it would have to be a pretty elaborate hoax by people I don't know. I never really thought I would make a hole in one since I'm a 12 handicap and I know the odds are so long.