It wasn’t even supposed to be a golf day. It was late November, and we hadn’t planned on playing at all, but the weather surprised us with one of those rare, perfect days. Around 1 p.m., my son and I decided to call around and see if we could squeeze in a tee time. Meadowbrook Golf Club had one available an hour later, so we grabbed it. I’d invited my dad to join us, but he had a migraine and couldn’t make it.

When we showed up, the place was packed—way busier than a normal November afternoon—and even though our time was for 2 p.m., we didn’t actually tee off until a little later. We were paired with another father and his daughter. His name was Alan. He hit first on hole number one, a 164-yard downhill par 3, and he pulled it long and left.

My son and I talked about club selection, and we decided to hit something less than normal because long is trouble on that hole. Past the green it drops into the woods, down a hill, into this old muddy low spot that sometimes collects water and sometimes doesn’t. I pulled out an 8-iron thinking, If I catch it just right, maybe I’ll get somewhere near the green, but odds are I'll end up short.

Instead, I thinned it a little, and it came off hot. It was heading straight for the flag, and all I could think was, Stop. Please stop. I was worried it would roll right over the back—literally the one place I didn’t want to be. As it tracked at the stick, I said out loud, “Hit the flag!” Then the ball disappeared.

I looked at my son and the others and said, “Did that go in the hole?” They all kind of shrugged and said, “I think it did.”

But I didn’t believe it for a second. I’m a 15–20 handicap, not exactly the kind of player who walks around expecting hole-in-ones. I’ve never taken the game as seriously as my dad or his friends, and in my mind, a hole-in-one just wasn’t something that happened to golfers like me. I figured the ball must’ve just skipped past the pin and settled behind the green—precisely the disaster I had tried to avoid.

The young lady in our group didn’t hit a great shot, so we had to spend a couple of minutes looking for her ball. Then she had to hit again. All of this extra time gave me plenty of chances to convince myself that my shot wasn’t in the hole. When we finally started driving up, I kept scanning the back of the green, fully expecting to see my ball sitting somewhere it shouldn’t be.

But it wasn’t there.

I walked up to the cup… and sure enough, there it was. My ball, in the hole.

My first ever hole-in-one. On a random November afternoon we weren’t even supposed to be playing. On the very first swing of the day. An absolutely unbelievable way to start a round—and honestly, it was all downhill from there. But what a moment.

Thank you.