Beating The Odds
SARVER — Two days removed from his rare golf feat, Justin Hildebrand still found it difficult to describe.
Hildebrand, 21, of Sarver, was golfing with four others in a scramble format Friday at Hartmann's Deep Valley Golf Course.
He aced the No. 3 hole. What sets this apart from almost every other hole-in-one — it came on a par 4 from 280 yards.
“I still can't explain it,” said Hildebrand, a 2016 graduate of Freeport Area High School. “It just happened.”
The National Hole in One Association sets the odds of achieving an albatross at 6 million to 1.
Golfing with Hildebrand were his father, Shawn Hildebrand, Lisa and Joe McCombs, and Kenny Hall.
“Kenny and Joe had already teed off and both had playable balls,” Justin Hildebrand said. “I was just trying to get it as close as I could and I used a driver.
“When I hit it, I was going for the right side of the green and it looked good. I remember someone saying, 'We're going to have an eagle putt.' It bounced within 10 feet of the green, went straight up in the air and came down, but we couldn't see where it ended up.”
Hildebrand said he thought it may have stopped within five feet of the cup.
“We got to the green and there's Kenny's ball and Joe's,” said Hildebrand. “Kenny starts looking for mine and heads to the back of the green. He tells me to look in the cup and just at that moment, I looked and there it was. I couldn't believe it.”
Hildebrand said that was the first time he had ever used a driver on the hole. Previously, he had gone with a 3-wood or long iron.
The albatross helped his group score a minus-5 (31) on the front nine.
He had played Hartmann's a handful of times before joining the scramble on Fridays about a month ago. He considers Buffalo Golf Course, where he played in high school, to be his home course.
“My dad and grandfather had always golfed and I picked it up when I was 8. Since then, it's just something I've always done.”
