What Do You Do If You're With This Woman Who Hit A Hole-in-One In Her First Ever Round Of Golf?

What an awesome story. You hate to see it. Disgusting stuff really. Thousands of rounds into my golf life and I've still never got one. I was close once. I pulled off something on a golf could that has only happened a mere fraction of the time a hole-in-one has. 

About 5 years ago. Stone Ridge Golf Club. Bowling Green, Ohio. Hole 8, Par 3. I forget what tee box I was hitting from but I think it was about a 150-yard hole. Hit a perfect pitching wedge. Really high shot. Probably too high of a trajectory, to be honest. Was going dead at the hole. When the ball came down, it literally hit the very tip top of the flag pole, bounced straight up into the air like 30 feet, then dropped about 5 feet for the hole. I'm pretty sure I made birdie, but I can't even remember for sure. What are the chances of that? That's so much smaller of an area to hit than the hole. And it's not like a hole-in-one where the ball can come in at different angles. It has to be on the fly. There is only one EXACT shot you can hit to do that. If a streamer ever did a "we can't stop streaming until we hit the very top of the flag pole" challenge, they would literally never finish. 

Congrats to this girl though. What beautiful scenery too. With the mountains in the background and everything. That looks like a pretty fancy course. But you know someone in that group is salty. Look at orange shirt guy smirking in the background. Look at that grin. He is LIVID. Ok I'm sure he's not livid. He looks pretty happy for his friend. But there's a look in his eye. I know he's thinking something. 

It's good that this happened to someone who at least works at a golf course. So at least she's around the game enough to appreciate the rarity of a hole-in-one. It would be so much worse if it were a person who wasn't familiar with golf at all, and after she hit the hole-in-one just kinda laughed it off and gave a lighthearted celebration because she assumes that must happen all the time. The people she's golfing with try to make her understand how insane what just happened was, but they can tell it's not getting through to her. Then as she pulls her ball out of the hole, she turns to the guy next to her and innocently asks, "When was your first hole-in-one?"

And the dude she's golfing with who's at the range every day, grinding out 3-4 rounds a week every summer, custom fitting his clubs, fine tuning his swing with the club pro, who's been banging his fucking head against the wall for years to try and get below a 5 handicap has to say, "I've never had one..."

"Well I'm sure you'll get one soon", she says. "Maybe today is the day!"

Then the next par 3 he hits an excellent shot. Sticks it 8-feet left of the hole. And the girl's response is, "Aw man almost!", like it was a disappointing shot or something. That would be so much worse. But I'd imagine Emma who works in the Kananaski Snack Shack must at least have an appreciation for how special a hole-in-one is.

But what do you do with this girl now? You can't just shake her hand, congratulate her on her shot, and let her get on with your life. Here are options.

Invest in Her Future

Maybe she's a prodigy. Pay for her to get a membership. Get her a swing coach and a fresh new set of clubs. Start entering her in tournaments. Invest in her golf career in exchange for 10% of her career winnings. Maybe she's the next Se Ri Pak.

Break Her Golf Clubs in Half 

Alternatively, make it so she can never golf again. It's for her own good. Time to retire. Start on a high note, end on a high note. Golf is never going to get that good again. You'll spend the rest of your life chasing that feeling, and every round for the rest of your life will be a disappointment. 

Force Her to Buy an Absurd Amount of Drinks for You in The Clubhouse

Honestly that's one of the most ridiculous traditions in golf. I've blogged this story once before, but one time my dad played a crazy nice expensive course in China for some work thing. He put a ball like an inch from the hole. His caddie told him (it was one of those courses where everyone just gets a caddie, and they all dressed like this)

Scott Halleran. Getty Images.

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One of those cutie pies told him would have legitimately been expected to fund like, an entire fucking party at the clubhouse afterwards. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, in damage. I know most courses aren't actually going to hold you to that. But even at regular American course. Say you're playing in a work scramble with a bunch of clients and work people who you kinda know. You don't know what that scene is going to be like back at the clubhouse. You could get strong-arm guilted into something you don't have the means for. Even the thought of that would kinda prevent you from fully enjoying your hole-in-one if you don't have money for a big bar tab. I'd be hanging over your head for the rest of the round. The person who hit the hole-in-one shouldn't come with a financial burden.

But this girl has to pay up. Welcome to golf, toots. You wanna walk on our course for the first time in your life and hit an ace on you're 4th fucking hole? Something us real golfers have never been close to doing? You think this is easy? You think this is fun? There's nothing fun about golf. We come here to avoid our families and get pissed off. If you're going to have the audacity to have fun right in our face, you're gonna pay up. 

Send Her to Buy a Lottery Ticket

You gotta recognize when you're hot. Screw paying for my drinks. Take the amount of my bar tab and put it in the Keno machine. If on her way home she didn't buy a lottery ticket, stop at a casino, put half her net worth on the pass line, and place a +750000 parlay, she's being downright irresponsible with her money.

Throw Her in The Water to See if She Floats

She's clearly a witch. Nobody does that. How many girls golfing for the first time in their lives are hitting the green on their first first time out? How many are even hitting a drive 99 yards? How many are even making halfway consistent contact? There's something shady about this woman. There's obviously some sort of black magic at play. I wouldn't feel comfortable being in the same room as her until we've run a witch test. 

Shake Her Hand and Congratulate Her on Her Accomplishment

I guess you could just be a normal person about it and not ruin it by being all golf about it. To each their own.