By Staff
DOWAGIAC – Rick Waldron had a hole-in-one on No. 13 at Hampshire Country Club on Saturday.
Waldron is part of a group of golfers that play every Saturday morning at Hampshire called Saturday Morning Tour (SMT).
Playing with Waldron were fellow SMT members Frank Reese, Dale Smith and Dave Cangelosi.
This was the second hole-in-one for Waldron, his first ace coming at Hampshire on the No. 15 hole on the Dogwood Course back in 2004.
The foursome teed off on hole No. 1 at 6:15 a.m. with dense fog in the area. By the time they reached the 13th hole, the fog was so thick that they could barely see the flag on the right side of the green.
Waldron used a 9-iron for the 124-yard shot. The ball was lost in the fog, but the group knew that it was headed toward the pin.
Cangelosi also hit his ball right at the pin. As they got to the green, they could only see three balls and Waldron thought he might have hit his ball long.
Another member of the group, Reese, suggested that Cangelosi should look in the hole and, sure enough, he saw the ball at the bottom of the cup and retrieved Waldron's Titleist ball that found the hole.
No one saw the ball go in the hole, but it was a thrill none the less. Cangelosi made his birdie putt on the hole, so the group had an ace, a birdie and two pars on the par three, 13th hole.
It was strange that as the group got to the next tee on No. 14, the fog cleared and the conditions remained clear the rest of the day.
An even stranger thought entered Waldron's mind as he was playing the next hole. He remembered his late father, Earl Waldron had made a hole-in-one on the same hole in 1979 while playing in the Monday night Tyler Golf League.
"It started to sink in as we walked to the next tee," Waldron said. "I though gosh, that's the same hole. What would have been even stranger, was if it would have been the same date.
"It was strange because it was really foggy and by the time we got to the 13th hole you could see the pin on the right side of the green, but once the ball got up in the air you couldn't see it," he continued. "By the time we got to the next hole you could see perfectly. It was clear as day. Someone said maybe Earl is up there helping out. It was a great feeling."
When Waldron got home he found a Niles Daily Star newspaper clipping that his mother, Millie, had saved of the event.
Earl Waldron got his ace on April 23, 1979 while playing with his partner Jim Myers and his opponents Bill Stewart and Tom Kennedy.
Kennedy still plays in the Tyler Golf League along with Rick Waldron, Reese, Smith and Cangelosi.
The strange coincidence is that in April of 1979, Earl Waldron was 53-years-old. Rick Waldron is now 53 too.
Earl Waldron passed away in 1992 and Millie passed away in 1998.
Rick is honored to share a special moment with his dad. It took 28 years to do it, but Rick and Earl can boy lay claim to an ace on luck hole No. 13.