Thoughts and Prayers
Hole-in-one heartbreak: Golfer makes devastating discovery when checking the cup after first 'ace'
To truly understand another golfer’s pain, you have to walk a mile in their spikes. So imagine for a moment that you are Mike. Recently, Mike thought he made his first-ever hole-in-one. He saw the ball go in the hole. The whole crew went wild. They made their way to the green with the cameras rolling, ready to capture the unforgettable moment. But when Mike bent down to pluck his ball from the cup, he made perhaps the most devastating discovery in golf history. Watch it and weep.
As it turned out, it wasn’t Mike’s ball in the hole. It was his playing partner Jimmy’s. Jimmy tee’d off first and put one on the dance floor. As Rick Golfs explains, Mike’s ball landed so close to Jimmy’s and at such an angle that it created an optical illusion. Instead of finding the bottom of the cup itself, it struck Jimmy’s ball and ricocheted it in. Nobody, least of all Mike, realized until they got down to the green and saw it with their own eyes.
This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for everybody involved. Mike had a once-in-a-lifetime achievement dangled in front of him and then snatched away in the cruelest way possible. Jimmy didn’t get credited for an ace either, having to replace his ball on the green as close to its original location as possible per those pesky Rules of Golf. A true lose-lose if we’ve ever seen one. But there is one silver lining to this tragic tale:
A heartbreaking day on the golf course is still better than a great day anywhere else.