Golfers sink hole-in-ones on same hole in same day
PENN TWP — Same course. Same hole. Same day.
Those were just the basics for an interesting sort of phenomenon recently, as two golfers — West View’s Jim Ludwig and McCandless’ Liann Kester — shot holes-in-one at LakeVue North Golf Course on June 15.
Donna Coddington, the pro shop manager, has been working at LakeVue North for eight years. She hadn’t seen anything like it before.
“We’ve never had two in one day,” she said. “A few years ago, we had 11 the whole season, but that was a pretty high number, I thought. Two in one day is just kind of crazy.”
The achievements may have been the same in essence, but not in application.
“It was the power of positive thinking for me that day,” said Ludwig, who’s been golfing for north of 55 years. “There are four par 3 holes on that course. No. 2 is very difficult, so I didn’t make any bold statements there.
“No. 4, as I got ready to hit, I said, ‘I haven’t had a hole-in-one for a long time. This would be a good place.’”
The ace didn’t come there. Or at No. 11. No. 14, as he saw it, was Ludwig’s last chance.
For Kester, the possibility wasn’t even on her mind. She was golfing with three other women, a quartet that gathers every Thursday for league play.
“It’s a tricky hole, because there’s a wall in front of the view — and before the wall, there’s a pump and some wet area,” Kester said. “I hit pretty good. I thought it would be in the green ... I didn’t pay attention to where it would go, but I knew it was a good one.”
She watched her three partners tee off, then helped them find wayward shots in the rough. When she walked to where she thought her pink ball would be, it wasn’t there.
“Finally, we all come back to the green and I can’t find my ball,” Kester said. “The lady who finally (found it) said, ‘Oh my God, the ball is right in the hole!’ ... It was a surprise.”
Ludwig felt good about his effort off the tee, as well. He used a pitching wedge from just over 100 yards out.
“As soon as I hit it, I said, ‘Well, it’s straight enough,’” he said. “And it landed on the green and rolled up the hill and down to the right and disappeared into the cup.”
He dropped his club in disbelief.
“It’s bold statements you make, but you really don’t expect to do it,” Ludwig said. “It’s like they say. If you don’t think you can do it, you’ll never be disappointed, because you probably won’t.”
He’d notched one other hole-in-one prior, an uphill shot years ago at Westmoreland Country Club.
“That was still thrilling, but it’s not quite like watching it go in,” Ludwig said.
Kester has been on the links for considerably less time than her counterpart. She’s golfed for four or five years and has been participating in the league for three. She played in Florida for three months earlier this year before heading to Taiwan to visit family for two months.
During that time, before returning in late May, she didn’t even pick up a club. The break hasn’t seemed to affect her.
“I think I’m getting a little improved this year,” she said.
Kester’s husband has been golfing for 40 years or so and has never notched a hole-in-one.
“You really have to be close,” she said. “I may have been just one foot away or something ... It doesn’t happen often, especially for ladies.”
To this point in the season — since the beginning of April — LakeVue North has seen four golfers pencil in an ace.
“A lot of people, I think it’s only a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Coddington said. “We put a lot of golfers out every day, so the percentage, I bet it’s about 1% is a hole-in-one.”
Ludwig also mentioned a family member in accomplishing the feat.
“I have a lot of golf stories that I relate to my father,” Ludwig said. “He never had an eagle or a hole-in-one in all the years he played, so I guess I’d say that was for him.”
