An Incredible Dose of Deja Vu

Posted November 19, 2009

AS FAR AS THE WEATHER GOES, it doesn’t get much better for golf than a beautiful morning under the south Florida blue sky. Rich Ferrarelli, a branch sales manager in Plantation, Florida, and his three friends, Pete, Don, and Jim were enjoying another Sunday on the links in Broward County, Florida. They had no clue that something amazing was about to happen.

“This one is going on the green,” Rich said, pointing to his friends as he stepped up to the tee on the par three, fourth hole.

Rich lined up at the tee, but misfired with his aim as he swung his TaylorMade hybrid toward the tee. The ball shot up in the air, veering off course before splashing down in a nearby lake. His friends roared with laughter.

Rich took the kidding in stride, and pulled another ball from his pocket and placed it on the tee again 155 yards away from the hole. He cleared his mind of the shot and lined up at the tee. As he hit the ball, Rich could tell this was a much better shot. As the ball dropped from the sky and bounced onto the green, it suddenly rolled straight into the hole. “Wow, a hole in one!” Rich exclaimed.

His friends stood aghast with their mouths wide open. They couldn’t believe it. They quickly corrected Rich that it was not an ace, but a very good par.

Fast forward exactly two weeks later and under an almost identical sky. The same foursome finished playing the third hole and Rich stepped up to the tee on the same hole number four. Rich was intent on hitting the green this time. Maybe it was lack of concentration or just bad luck, but Rich hooked his swing and the ball veered wildly into the lake again.

Rich’s friends laughed at his mistake, hounding him over the shot. He set up the tee, set his eye on the green and then the ball. Rich took his shot, and this time, the ball looked like it might hit the green. The ball dramatically dropped out of the sky and hit the green much further back than two weeks earlier. However, then it started to roll from the left side of the green to the hole on the right. Could it really be happening again? It rolled and rolled before finally sinking into the hole.

“They couldn’t believe it, and neither could I,” Rich said. “One of them told me next time, I should just throw a ball into the water and then hit one from the tee!”

There are no official odds on golfers hitting an ace after shooting the ball into the water. However, the odds of an amateur golfer making a hole in one on a par 3, 150-yard hole are roughly 12,500 to 1.

Murphy’s law says things that can go wrong, will go wrong. Maybe that law needs a revision? Sometimes when things go wrong, they turn around and go right.

Everyone has a story.