June 11, 2025

I was playing golf after work with two of my buddies, Tyler Cato and Jake Stallard. Jake had brought along one of his coworkers, Jeff.

We had just waited out a sideways downpour that left everything drenched—my clubs, my glove, everything. Once it passed, we continued playing. After a missed birdie putt on 15 that drove me up a wall, we began to approach 16. Jeff lasered the flag: 139 yards. I already had my 9-iron in hand, as that is typically the club for that hole no matter pin location but the tee’s were set at the northern tee box rather than the southern tee box, so it was playing much shorter. I knew it was too much club. Still, I didn’t feel like walking back to grab my wedge, so I decided to knock it down and flight it a bit. I didn’t even bother putting on my soaked glove or teeing the ball up. I dropped it behind an old divot and swung away.

The moment I made contact, I knew I flushed it. It was tracking the flag perfectly. As it reached its apex and started coming down, I thought it might be just a touch long. It landed maybe 12–14 inches past the pin, right in line, and started spinning back.

Dunk.

I couldn’t believe it. My first hole in one.

Ironically, Jeff—who I had only met once before—was the first one to run over, hug me, and celebrate. Total chill dude and a great hang. Jake followed, and then Tyler, my best friend in the whole world. Tyler and I have played only God-knows-how-many rounds together. When my wife and I met, she actually got us into golf—she already played, and we just fell in love with the game. We were terrible back then, but we loved it. Seven years later, we’ve both improved a ton, and we still have a blast every time we play.

The rain started back up as we reached 17, so we called it a night. By the time we got back to the truck, we were completely soaked and could barely get the carts up to the clubhouse.

We piled into our trucks and hauled it to McDonald’s for a celebratory dinner. The tab was $62.13—and I picked it up, as tradition says you’re supposed to when you get a hole-in-one. No drinks for us this time , just hamburgers, chicken nuggets, ice cream and fries baby.