GREENSBORO, GEORGIA | This couldn’t really be happening, could it? It took a few seconds to register because my focus was on the screen of my iPhone, snapping a sequence of photos as Dottie Farmer hit on the 96-yard uphill par-3 11th hole at the Landing at Reynolds Lake Oconee. But the gaze quickly redirected to that white ball sailing through a blue December sky heading straight for the flag. I mean, right at it.
The bottom of the pin wasn’t visible, tucked as it was in a hollow of green behind a bunker. The ball came down right at the base of the flagstick and disappeared behind the curve of dormant Bermuda grass hiding the putting surface. It didn’t reappear on the sliver of visible green behind the flag, so …
Seriously, nobody could be this lucky. Let me clarify that: Dottie Farmer could be that lucky. But certainly not the golf writer who came to see the 72-year-old retired middle school teacher from Delaware who’d already recorded her 20th and 21st aces two days apart in 2021. I mean, according to the National Hole-In-One Registry, the odds of making an ace are 12,500-to-1. Doing it on one of four opportunities for a reporter who showed up to write about you doing it? Hitting the Powerball lotto seems about as likely.
Was this No. 22 for Farmer? Her husband, Rich, and published “golfaholic” Paul Laubach raced in their cart up the hill to investigate while Dottie posed for a portrait as I kicked myself for shooting still photos instead of video. Alas, Dottie’s ball was found 4 feet above the hole; her ballmark a couple feet below it. It had to have rolled within an inch or two of the cup from point A to point B.
Dottie just shrugged and smiled at another recycled golf ball eluding a spot in her crowded curio case. They can’t all go in despite her not-so-secret formula.
“I just aim at the flag,” she said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
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