My Hole In Wasn’t

Today, I'm running a piece I wrote a few years back, which typifies my entire golf experience over the past four decades. Enjoy.

I didn’t coin the phrase, “Hole In Wasn’t.” That would be my best friend/cousin, Mike, after a round of golf in 2018.

We were playing in a charity outing put on by friends of ours to raise money for brain cancer research. The foursome was the aforementioned Mike, his brother Rich, my son, Will, and myself.

Up to that point in our day, we’d been doing well, our team sitting at 4-under par playing a “scramble” format. (If you’re familiar with a scramble, you know what I’m talking about, and that 4-under is OK, but not great; much like our team. If you don’t know what a scramble format is, I won’t waste your time explaining it because you don’t care anyway, and it has no bearing on the story.)

As we arrived at the elevated tee that overlooked a large green guarded by bunkers on both sides, several event volunteers let us know that it was a “betting hole” in which the closest to the pin from the tee would “split the pot,” with the remaining proceeds going to charity. For a $5 donation, we could try to beat the current closest tee shot, which from our vantage point looked to be approximately two feet from the pin.

After analyzing the shot, I declined to bet, saying something like, “Seems like you’d have to put it in the hole to beat that one.” (ASIDE: It wasn’t that I’m cheap; I just felt my $5 could go to something else later in the event, like raffle tickets, etc.)

In response, the friendly, outgoing woman who appeared to be the ringleader of this group of three or four super-friendly ladies upped the ante. “You also get a shot of your choice,” she said in a sing-songy voice as she held up two bottles of some strange, colorful booze. So, in other words, $5 could buy me a donation to some other golfer’s great tee shot, and I could , “enjoy” a shot of some weird alcoholic concoction that, frankly, didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard of. (Something with “peach” and “beach” in the name; it sounded awful.)

Unlike myself, cousin Rich – always up for a challenge or at least ready to make a donation to just about anything – generously decided that this was a bet worth making and gave her $20 to cover all of us. Declining the alcoholic shot (we all did for various reasons; possibly the best decision we made that day), I continued to think Rich was throwing away his money, wondering why, like yours truly, he didn’t save it for the raffle or silent auction.

“With only two or three groups left to play this hole, no one is going to get inside that shot,” I thought, adding (in my head), “Whoever hit that shot is a stone-cold lock to win. I’ll be lucky if I can keep it out of one of those bunkers.”

As the appointed “leadoff hitter” on our team (not sure how I earned the spot, but someone had to hit first), I lined up and casually said something like, “I guess I’ll have to hit the pin to win the pot.” My history with the game (which mostly involves internal strife, massive amounts of effort, frustration and lots of time questioning why I ever took up the sport in the first place) would point to me not hitting the pin or even getting close to the green. However, landing it in one of the bunkers was a distinct possibility.

Fast forward approximately 45 seconds, as I’m running toward Mike (after “possibly” barrel-rolling down a small hill after “possibly” losing my balance in the excitement), looking for someone to hug, high-five or tackle.

I found Mike (he was three feet away), and he had his arms outstretched to give me a congratulatory hug after my first-ever hole in one. It was awesome! I knew I had hit a solid shot, one good enough to land on the green. And it did, on the left-front, just to the right of one of the bunkers. It then rolled to the right, closer, closer, finally hitting the pin and disappearing. We all saw it, all four of us. It just disappeared.

What Mike and I didn’t realize (something Will and Rich did because they weren’t running around in circles or barrel-rolling down a hill at the time) is that somehow, by some cruel, strange, grassy knoll twist of fate, after the ball dropped into the hole, it immediately popped out, coming to rest three feet from the pin. Not a hole in one, and by the way, not even closer than the previous “closest to the pin” shot.

Not yet realizing what had happened, I spotted Rich and Will standing quietly, too quietly, on the tee box. Then, I heard Rich say to Will, “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

After a deep breath, Will looked me in the eye and said, “It came out.”

After regaining most of my composure and some of my dignity (it takes a while when you’ve just barrel-rolled down a small hill after hitting – or in my case, hitting and then “unhitting” – a hole in one in front of friends, family and a few strangers who had undoubtedly partaken in a good portion of the "peach/beach" combo they'd offered us), the guys commiserated with me, and we spent the rest of the round speculating how it could have happened. Rich kept saying, “I can’t believe that thing came out. That ball was in!”

Mike immediately went into Oliver Stone mode, looking for reasons, motives, second shooters, conspiracy theories, additional suspects, and generally studying all the physical aspects of the shot and the construction of the hole, pointing out all the possibilities. He too, couldn’t understand how that ball came back out of the hole, and he has witnessed 12 holes in one, including two of his own.

Will, for his part and to his credit, remained quiet. I know he was feeling bad for me, and maybe a little embarrassed. (He did, after all, witness his dad running around like an idiot, followed by a barrel-roll down a small hill, but I did stick the landing, so there’s that.)

In the end, we made our birdie putt go 5-under and parred the final hole to end what was a really fun day for a good cause.

Later that night, Mike (after thinking about the shot for several hours and “possibly” drinking a bit of bourbon or some other brown liquor), sent me a 300-word (give or take) text that went into great detail with three theories on what might have happened. (I’ll spare you; suffice it to say, it was a well-crafted summary.) In the end, he concluded that I got screwed, and that it should have been a hole-in-one.

And, for a few seconds I think it was, and let me tell you, it was pretty cool … until it wasn’t … a “hole in wasn’t.”

Copyright 2026 David R. Haznaw