Ian Stawicki wasn’t supposed to be playing golf on Tuesday.
But his boss at Classic Lanes in Greenfield, Wisconsin, texted him Monday to see if he wanted to play in the Stars and Stripes Scramble at The Golf Club in Lumeira. With the bowling alley closed this week, the 40-year-old Stawicki was around.
Sammy Williams, 27, was participating for the third year in a row in the event benefiting local veterans. The physical therapist was one of the first to take off in thirteenth place.
By the end of the rounds, the two golf-loving odds will be tied together by odd pot strokes with the first holes popping up on the same day, at the same event, at the same hole.
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Ace Williams came in on the lucky 13, using a 9 iron from a front tee at 114 yards.
“I got up there to hit and then fly and she’s like ‘Oh, that’s a really good streak if it’s long enough,'” Williams said. Then bounce, bounce in. And you could see it all the way because we were on the high tee box.
“Because it was the first hole, basically nobody started playing yet. It was a gunshot start. So everyone heard me screaming like ‘Oh, that looks like a little more exciting than a bird.’ “”
Stawicki’s group was just running and she wondered what was the reason for the altercation. A few hours later they reached the thirteenth hole. Stawicki was playing golf with three women, so he was the only one to go off 176 yards using a 7-iron.
“I hit him and on the left side of the start of the green there’s a hill,” Stawicki said. “He’s going down into the hole and I hit him and I was walking away from him. I saw the ball rolling and then I lost it and I said ‘OK.’ Everyone was like, ‘Where did you go?'”
I said, ‘I don’t want to say that, but he might be in the hole. They were like, ‘Yeah, right. whatever.’ So we go down to the next level until they go off and my shopping cart partner goes ‘I don’t see your ball on the green. Are you sure?’ I said, “I’m sure she’s on the green.”
When they arrived for a closer examination, a beacon of light illuminated the hole. All that was missing was a choir of rumored angels.
“The sun was shining on the ball,” Stawicki said. “So the golf ball lit up and you could see it. I just started acting crazy.”
He soon discovers the most unusual coincidence.
“They had five in the hole, and they said ‘someone else had one in that hole two hours ago,’” Stawicki said. “I’m like ‘was this the same hole?’ “
Shortly after a Stawicki shot, Williams finished her run 12th.
“The camper girl came and went, ‘Oh, I hate to tell you,'” Williams said, ‘but I just gave shots to another guy who hit one hole in the same hole I did. ” ‘truly?’ “
Workers at the Camelot golf club estimate they average three holes in one per year. It is not immediately clear if what Stawicki and Williams accomplished has ever happened in the state. But it happened in Illinois in 2017, with a story on PGA.com stating that “according to the National Hole-in-One Record, the odds of two amateur golfers getting aces on the same hole on the same golf course on the same day About 17 million to 1”.
For this rare feat, Stawicki and Williams divided two cases of Sprecher Root Beer given to the golfer “closest to the pin” at the Stars and Stripe Scramble.
Stawicki said he plays about 12 outings a year, with another outing in a few weeks.
“I’m more of an avid bowler player,” Stawicki said. “And I have 300 multiplayer matches. I mean, first hole in one, maybe you set yourself up a level higher and now you want another level.”
Williams played golf at Sussex Hamilton High School and Lakeland College. You still get the course once a month. This ace has lit the fires of rivalry.
She said, “I’ll keep playing. My dad has three, so I have more to get.”
