A Rare Feat

It’s a whole new game when a golf ace sinks a hole-in-one

by John Jeter

An ace in a deck of cards. An ace on dice and dominoes. An ace in tennis. An ace on a school exam. An ace baseball pitcher. An ace combat pilot. And, of course, a hole-inone is an ace.

“I was planning on being an Air Force pilot after college, so my goal now is five aces,” says John McConnell, noting that those daring young men in their flying machines during World War I had to down that many enemy planes before being considered an ace.

The president and CEO of the eponymous company says he was 62 years old before sinking his first of three holes-in-one. That was on July 15, 2012, on hole No. 3 at Raleigh Country Club, where several members have made that golden tee shot.

One of them is Jack Lehmann. The former high school science teacher from New Jersey scored two of his three lifetime holes-in-one … in the same round. And he was playing not on his home course of 14 years — Porters Neck Country Club in Wilmington, North Carolina — but at another McConnell Golf property.

Lucky 13 he called that Wednesday, July 13, last year, when he and his wife, Mary Lynn, were playing Country Club of Asheville during a three-day trip celebrating their 26th anniversary. Mary Lynn was born on the 13th, the couple married on the 13th, and Jack sank his first ace that day on the 13th hole.

“The odds are something like 67 millionto-1,” he says, matching PGA numbers. “I said, ‘I couldn’t believe it. I absolutely cannot believe this, two in one round.’”

Asked how he did it, he chuckles, “A lot of luck.”

Layne Foor, a 12-year member of Raleigh Country Club in North Carolina, echoes that.

“I’ve always said, all my life, ‘I’d rather be lucky than good,’” says the senior account representative for a global medical instrumentation company.

“Obviously, I think, the better golfer you are, the better your chances are because you’re going to be around the hole a lot more often. But a lot of it does come down to luck.”

Luck swung twice in 2022, first in April with a 5-iron drive on the 187-yard No. 3. Then, in November, he sank a hole-in-one on 17 — but then, that’s where his luck, as it were, ran out.

That afternoon, Foor zipped around the back nine by himself. When he reached that 117-yard par 3, he took out his 45-degree wedge and hit “a beautiful shot, it was all over the flag.”

He had just played through a foursome on the 16th hole, and when he saw them at the next green, he asked if they would play as witnesses in case …

“Lo and behold, it’s in the hole. I have to write down their names. I take the card with their names on it as witnesses, and I go into the clubhouse,” he recalls. But he says the pros told him, “‘Layne, this doesn’t count, it’s got to be an 18-hole round.’ I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. You have got to be kidding me.”

Enough daylight remained to complete the front nine before he had to get to his son’s soccer game.

“My dad was a scratch golfer his whole life and he never had one hole-in-one and here I am,” says Foor. “It’s a little crazy.”

Kevin Kaylor’s youngest son, Jackson, was part of a threesome with him last Father’s Day. After Kevin’s 5-iron shot on the 187-yard No. 3, Kevin says, the 16-year-old “looked into the hole, and he just yelled, ‘Dad, it’s in the hole!’

So that was pretty cool. We all just kind of let out a big holler,” Kevin says.

A member for 11 years of The Reserve Golf Club at Pawleys Island, South Carolina, Kevin, a Wells Fargo financial advisor, took his second ace to the bank last year on No. 7 with a 6-iron — another feel-good moment after playing 35 years.

“You haven’t had one for your whole life, and then you get one and get another one six or seven weeks later. So it was pretty exciting,” he says; he also mentioned his oldest son, Chris, was 15 when he shot two holes-in-one within two weeks.

Like the others here, those two Kaylors beat the PGA’s 12,000-to-1 odds of acing a hole.

“It’s a jubilant feeling,” Foor says, adding, “It’s cool. You know that you’re part of this elite group, that things like that don’t happen very often.”