48-man outing ,men divided into flights based on USGA index, final day of four, shotgun start, match play for our format. Our 4-some teed off on 16 and had a rather uneventful hole, mostly bogeys. I believe I was second to tee off on the fairly-steep sloped 17th at Angola's Glendarin CC. 155 yards was called out after someone shot the pin with a laser. Though we only play this course once a year, I know the hole pretty well from our years of outings at Glendarin. I recall the play was to hit one extra club, so I grabbed an 8-iron. Not much breeze, teed the ProV1x up, took a practice swing, lined up and took a smooth swing cracking the ball towards the pin. It looked like a nice shot and at the target, so I picked up my tee and the next guy went through his routine. Very uneventful proceedings since the tee is decently below the green, next guys hit, hop in the carts to the green. All three of the other guys were short and left of the green without hope of hitting the dance floor. We pull up, now higher than the putting surface - and without a ball to be seen. So I grab a putter and a wedge and start the hunt for my ball. I head to the front of the green to find my pitch mark. It was about 8-10 ft from the hole, in line with the cup and tee box. SO I'm now staring 35 feet beyond the hole mumbling where the F#$! is my ball, it wasn't that bad of a shot and I put plenty of spin on the ball....how could it have made it to the back of the green? I take two or three steps towards the pin and as I am walking past the hole I glance down and see my purple JE initials on my ball that is in the CUP! Oh my God! It's in the CUP I yell. My partners (Dan Christensen, Bill Baird, and Joe Ariss) for the day were watching me the whole time...and start running towards me. High-fives, and hugs, plus some screams...and I was shaking with excitement. It was my first ever, I did it before I turned 50, it was my BIG annual outing, and it was amazing. Now we put money in for pin shots, right. This course is fancy where there is a bracket that is put into the cup and a tape measure is attached and you write down Name, Feet, Inches if you are on the green closer than another player. We were the 1st group through this hole. I got to put down ELKE, 0ft, 0in...Hole-in-One WOW! We head off to the 18th, not without a thought of keeping the embroidered flag on the stick - as a memento, right? But I left it. We hit our drives on 18 and I was ready to hit my 2nd shot when I see a cart from one of the groups behind us start to approach. It's Dan. "Hey, Elke did you really get a hole-in-one or were you just being a douche"? My partners all start yelling at him - "He absolutely got it"! "Oh?...hummmm.....congrats" and off he drove. Each group thereafter got to see the card, and as I went around the course continuing my round - others in the 48 person outing stopped to congratulate me. That round I hit all 4 par3s and was able to put my name on 3 of the signs as being closer. Fortunately, the hole-in-one held up (though the others did not) which got me a little cash to help pay the bar-tab for the 47 drinks I shared with my outing brothers. -Joe