Seems most accounts begin with something like, it was a dark and stormy night, err twilight, or something like that. For me, nothing so dramatic as it was an amazing New England Summer day and I was playing, and grinding it out, in the 1st Round of the Club championship at Red Tail GC in a group consisting of friends and for the most part evenly matched players who commiserated with each other over every less than stellar shot, every missed putt, every hiccup. We got to the Par 3, 169 yard, 11th hole called the Gravel Pit, and with the afternoon sun in our eyes, I hit the 6 well and saw it bounce on the fringe between the right side bunker and the green. When we got to the green my ball was nowhere to be found. We looked in and around the bunker, on the cliff, over the green, we even looked left. Nowhere. After 5 minutes I began walking off the green heading back to the tee (crap, a great shot entered the black hole never to be found) when I heard one of my mates ask, did anyone look in the hole? There it was, my Titleist smiling back at me saying something like "you've been smacking me around for 11 holes, it's time for me to rest." Because we were playing in one of the later groups of the Club Championship, I called the clubhouse and let them know that my competitors were all invited and are welcomed to a round on me in celebration of my first hole in one. My Titleist has been set aside as a memoir along with the bar tab for future reference.