By Matt Snyder, oobgolf contributer

Almost every Monday morning, a good friend and I play 18 at Penn National Golf Club here in my hometown. We have pretty similar handicaps, so naturally, we like to put a little money on a the line and have some friendly competition with our round. Well, he's been beating me up pretty badly this summer, but I was coming off of back-to-back wins going into yesterday's round. For that reason, I had been talking a lot of smack about the upcoming round and how his time to beat me had passed bye. Always fun to act this way, but usually not a good idea.

Naturally, I started the round with a pathetic bogey on the first hole and then a terrible double bogey on the par 5 second hole. So, as the two of us are waiting on the third tee, a 194 yard par 3, I am eating my words and wondering how I can be so stupid! Of course, he hits first and sticks one about 10 feet left of the pin. I congratulated him on his lucky shot and stepped up to my shot thinking that this was going to be a very long day! I realized that the pin was way forward and that I had the wrong club in my hand for that pin placement, but there was no way I was going to go back to the cart at that point. I'm way too lazy in general and was far too dejected at that moment to care. I decided to choke down on my 3-iron and play a little fade to take off some distance. I looked at the flag and said "Well, let's try to hit a green and get something positive going here Matt." Next thing I know I am looking at the exact shot that I pictured. Man I love it when that happens!

The hole was playing into the sun and there was a bad glare on the green, so as the ball landed, my friend and I were not quite sure what happened. He said, "That might have gone in." I responded with, "I don't see it. That ball better not be long!" He replied with, "I don't think that's long. That just might have gone in Matthew." Turned out, he was right!!

As we drove up to the green, my heart was pounding as my eyes searched the green for my ball. When I parked the cart, I could see a ball mark about six feet in front of the pin and it was at that point that I started to feel confident. I ran up to the green, and there was my ball sitting in the bottom of the cup. Man, what a feeling! My first hole-in-one! And, just that quickly, my round went from a disaster to one that I will never forget. I went on to shoot a solid score and my opponent never recovered from the intimidation of the ace!

I had been close so many times, only to have to answer "No" every time someone asked me if I had ever had a hole-in-one. Now, I will welcome that question and smile as I tell the story and remember that feeling.




Here are the other hole-in-one's posted on oobgolf through the first 100,000 scores entered.