Contributed photo
Kevin Helwick, general manager of Frontier Chevrolet in Oak Harbor, left, and golf tournament coordinator Roberta Piercy congratulate Robert Pelant on his hole-in-one in front of the car Pelant didn’t win, because he scored his magic shot on a different hole. Instead, he took home a new camcorder.
Coupeville resident Robert Pelant recounts his unusual and unexpected hole-in-one feat during the Coupeville Booster Club golf tournament in Oak Harbor last month.
On Saturday, Sept. 6, the Coupeville Booster Club held its second annual golf tournament at the Gallery Golf Course in Oak Harbor. It is their flagship event, and over 50 golfers participated for the benefit of our high school athletes and the sports programs.
The early morning hours found me in my office trying to catch up from the week's events. Time passed quickly and I scrambled to find my clubs. I would end up arriving at the course about 10 minutes before tee-time. No time for practice swings or the putting green.
After securing my clubs I thoroughly searched my sock drawer - that last bastion of treasures that just might possibly be secure from marauding teenagers - for any "good" golf balls that said teenagers might have missed. I came across the faded Top Flight I used when I got a hole-in-one during the Booster Club's inaugural tournament in 2007. That was at the same golf course, on the sixth hole. My foursome that day included Larrie Ford, John Tucker and Scott Brookhouse, and we had a shotgun start, so it was actually our 16th hole of the day - our last par 3 for the day.
Not having played golf in a year, I had been pummeling my way through the course, and used one club longer than I might have used. Nice arching shot, bouncing twice and rolling to the left - right into the middle of the hole.
You had to have been there to see 40- and 50-somethings doing cartwheels, rolling down the hills and various other exercises that could throw a knee or even a hip! We all escaped relatively unscathed, and I had not gotten down the hill to retrieve The Shot from the cup before my son Zach called me, exclaiming that he heard I got an Ace.
(Yes, we do live in a small town. And quite well connected, electronically, I might add. Make sure remember that the next time you walk out to the mailbox in your boxers and laundry-shrunk Rolling Stones t-shirt.)
Back to the present - I huffed and puffed my way to the sign-up booth at the course, registered, collected my plaque for last year's hole-in-one, got a hotdog, bought four Callaway balls for a buck apiece, and despite glares from my Home Boys, er, foursome - Scott Brookhouse, John Tucker and Ron Bodamer - loaded up my gear. I felt good. I was as prepared for this tournament as I was for last year's, not having played a single round of golf in the entire year that had passed.
We carted off to Hole 3 for our shotgun start. It was a par 3, uphill, nestled menacingly alongside a dark forest. I bent over once to try to touch my toes for my warm-up regimen, and settled with somewhere mid-thigh. I reached in my pocket and produced that lucky Top Flight from last year, and the boys and I laid hands on it just prior to tee-off.
Three shots went to the left and down the hill. Now it was my turn. (All right, this is the time for you regulars to laugh. Go ahead.) I loaded up my 7 iron for what surely looked like a 9-iron shot, took one practice swing and gave it a whack. Hey, I didn't want to throw something out in my back or rupture a quad or anything.
The shot sailed up to the right of the flag, but within the right edge of the green, and looked to be a good 30 feet long. We drove up to the green and while the others were looking for their balls on the fairway to the left, I grabbed my putter and wedge and walked to the hole. We didn't see my ball beyond the green, so one of the Home Boys decided to look in the hole - and there she was! The $1 Callaway I had purchased in the Pro Shop had apparently rolled past the green, up a steep embankment, perhaps flirting with the rugged bark of the Douglas fir just for flavor, and trickled back down the hill into the hole. Yes, we have additional witnesses - two outstanding teachers from Coupeville Middle School, I might add, who were teeing up on the fourth hole.
Frontier Chevrolet had sponsored the tournament and offered a new car for a hole-in-one on the 10th Hole, along with great prizes on the other Par 3s. In my case, the prize was a Sony camcorder - which I'll use to film Wolves football games!
From this point on, it was all downhill for the Par 3s. The next one was the famed No. 6 where I got last year's hole-in-one. Wouldn't you know it, that sneaky club pro Mr. Mike Fields actually moved the location of the hole from last year's placement! It totally threw me and I missed by 15 feet. The final two par 3s were worse, so after starting out at 100 percent on holes-in-one for two consecutive par 3s, I ended up at 40 percent.
