HOLES IN ONE
Even pros like Hayashi still get excited over ace

Advertiser Staff

Kevin Hayashi

• Hilo
• Nov. 3, 2003
• Pearl Country Club
• No. 7 (335 yards, par-4)
• Driver

For a guy from the Big Island, Kevin Hayashi is unusually familiar with Pearl. He has worked there twice in the past two decades. In his last rotation, he was head pro. Hayashi has had hundreds of opportunities to play the downhill, often downwind, seventh hole.

He has never watched his ball crawl into the hole from the tee.

Still hasn't.

He and amateur partner Elton Tanaka were playing a scramble format in the Aloha Section PGA/Bridgestone Pro-Scratch tournament, so Hayashi felt comfortable pulling out his driver from the back tee. Historically, he had driven the green "maybe 5 percent" of the time.

This time, he did better.

"I hit it really good," Hayashi said. "It went straight, didn't even move, right at the flag."

Then it "got crazy." From the back tee, no one could see the hole on the front right of the green. Hayashi figured his ball was on the green. When he couldn't find it, he looked in front. Tanaka, ever the optimist, told him it must have gone over.

Hayashi took a peek in the hole on his way through and found what he was looking for.

He asked Lance Taketa, playing in his group, "What do you call it when your ball is in the hole?"

"Hole in one," Taketa said.

"Then that's what I got," Hayashi said, starting to dance.

It was his fourth hole in one, but first on a par-4.

Tell us about your experience shooting a hole in one.

Stories must be typed and brief, around 50-100 words. They must include the date, course, hole, yardage and club selection. Return phone numbers must be listed. Holes in one must have been reported to The Advertiser by the golf courses.

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