My first hole-in-one: a 46-year-wait ends with ace at Ryder Cup venue Moortown

Mark Townsend
Mark Townsend celebrates a hole in one

Few things are perfect in golf. There are too many different parts to the game to do everything well, the weather is rarely spot on, you get funny lies and, when you throw in a mindset that adds nothing positive to the whole process, then you’re struggling.

But, occasionally, it will happen. It might be the perfect drive or a drilled iron or rolling in a 30-footer where you’ll tell everyone that you ‘just had a feeling’ about it. But that’s pretty much as good as it will get.

You might play a few shots under your handicap but there will always be a nagging doubt that it could have been better.

At 7.15pm on May 31 nothing could have improved on what actually took place. For the first time in 46 years of playing golf I did something that I’ve pretended means nothing to me which, is in part true, but is also another example of brushing something off as a bit of nonsense as I never thought it would happen to me.

The story of the 10th at Moortown in Leeds, is a brilliant one and one expertly told by Cookie Jar Golf here.

In short Dr Alister MacKenzie, who went on to design the likes of Augusta National, Cypress Point and Royal Melbourne, built one hole to impress prospective members and, from there, Moortown was born. Nineteen years later it held the Ryder Cup.

If I was to choose somewhere I could have a hole-in-one it would be here. It would have been the 15th at Wimbledon Park, which is where my dad had his solitary ace, but the club’s now been bought out and that hole, a very cute, downhill par 3, is now overgrown and sadly gone for good.

But ‘Gibraltar’, as the 10th hole is known having been built on a rocky outcrop, is still alive and as sensational as ever. Over the winter the tee has been re-turfed which has seen me pipe a couple sideways off a mat but, back on grass, the winter demons were now slowly passing with each attempt.

The 10th hole at Moortown
It happened here!

In my favour was a right-to-left wind which gave me half a chance of hitting the green. The opposite would have resulted in trying to turn it back into the wind and overdoing things and going long and left. I was playing with three mates and we had just got back to all square so there was a nice bonhomie to everything. And I was slightly altered in the fact that I had just finished a can of Camden Hells Lager.

The yardage was an adjusted 162 yards which meant that the right club was probably a 7-iron so I did what I’ve done for the past 40 years and hit one less. The first player in the group found the edge of the green, which was saved by the wind a bit, so there was some sort of positive thinking that a big shove would get a bit of assistance.

The next bit is a bit of a blur. What I do remember is that my inner chimp said nothing on the takeaway, this is where I generally know if things are quickly going to turn to slush as I take it away on the inside and then spend the next few moments trying to steer the ship back on track.

But it was fine, nice and wide and no jolts of panic between the ears. The strike was pretty much spot on and there was a bit of right-to-left through the air. My eyes flicked between the ball and hole and even my negative outlook struggled to put a momentary downer on things.

There was a mention of a good shot, only I knew that I didn’t really have enough club to the back-left pin. But it then landed five yards further than I was expecting and seemed to keep trickling.

Not for a single second did I expect it to disappear from view but it did. On some holes there might be a kink in the green where your ball is actually 15 feet away but this isn’t the case here. Everything, as it should be, is in plain sight and there was no sign of my ball.

I’ve pictured this moment for years and never really known what I would do. I have celebrated a hole-in-one having seen my ball sitting in the hole at the 16th at Wimbledon Park in 1988 but, having done a Hale Irwin and run round the green, my dad informed me on the next tee that it was on the edge and that he had kicked it in. We didn’t speak for the last two holes, or the drive home.

I’ll occasionally bore friends with that story or mention that I once hit the pin at Royal Porthcawl but I rarely add that I thinned that particular tee shot and it was careering off the green rather than promising anything special. Otherwise I’ve not even threatened it. I have spent at least the past two decades playing away from pins to a spot where I won’t have to chip.

Now I was able to truly enjoy the moment and it felt genuinely magical. This was actually everything that I wanted; the shot, setting and company. My mates were similarly in shock, we all enjoyed a high five and a cuddle and the walk to the green was spent in giggles and general whooping.

I mumbled something about 1988, then spent most of the walk thinking about my dad who’s no longer around to phone straightaway but it was still something else.

The rest of the round continued in high spirits and the final kicker came with the sight of an empty clubhouse. Another curious sideshow of the game is having to buy everyone a drink, a ritual which I have consistently dismissed while simultaneously taking a drink off some unfortunate soul.

But, now, there was just the four of us so, feeling suddenly generous, I threw in a pint and a couple of packets of crisps.

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