It was a gorgeous day, and I was playing with three guys (Clint, Mike, and Iggy) I had just met that morning. They were all quite a bit older, and playing from the yellow tees, while I was playing blues. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the turn I had 3 double-bogies on the card and was already 7 over, so I wasn’t having the greatest round by any means. At that point I was thinking maybe this was a day to play from the whites… However, I started the back nine off with a par, so things were looking up. Then I stepped up to the par 3 11th hole to tackle the 170 yards to its slightly elevated green. It was a front pin placement that day, with the pin tucked behind a greenside bunker on the right front. So I grabbed my 6-iron and went for the pin anyway (I always do)! I struck it fairly well, but it wasn’t enough to land it on the green. Instead, it caught the backside slope of the bunker and hopped forward. Because the bunker slope itself was actually blocking the hole, none of us could see where the ball came to rest, but we all agreed it was very likely on the green. But then as we approached the green, nobody could seem to find my ball! It wasn’t anywhere on the green or in the bunker, and we knew it couldn’t be embedded since we all watched it hop. Suddenly, Clint stopped searching suddenly, turned his head sharply toward me and said, “I’m going to look in the hole” as he walked briskly over to it. As he perked over the edge and yelled jubilantly “here it is!” I said, “stop messing with me!” But when he pulled his hand out of the hole, he was holding my ball! This was my first ever hole in one after over 30 years playing the game. It most definitely raised my spirits, and helped me to salvage my round with only 2 over on the back nine!