Suffolk man hits hole-in-one
Published 10:15 pm Friday, April 19, 2013
Lightning may not strike in the same spot twice, but Willie Spivey of Suffolk recently hit a hole-in-one on the 130-yard No. 2 at Nansemond River Golf Club for the second time.
![Willie Spivey recently hit a hole-in-one on Nansemond River Golf Club's No. 2 hole for the second time in a year.](https://www.suffolknewsherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2013/04/DSCN2560.jpg)
Willie Spivey recently hit a hole-in-one on Nansemond River Golf Club’s No. 2 hole for the second time in a year.
“I knew it was a good shot,” Spivey said. “But you watch it roll and roll and roll and then actually it went up there, and I think it rested against the pin, because the wind was blowing the pin, and then the wind changed, and it flopped in. Because it stayed there just a second or so, and then it fell in.”
The conditions were slightly different from the first time he aced the hole about a year ago.
“I used an 8-iron on it,” he said. “It depends on the wind out. The first time I’d done it, I hit a 9-iron because the wind was different. This time I hit an 8-iron, the wind was in my face and whatever. So, it’s what we call a short iron.”
The hole position was also right center this time, as opposed to right back, previously.
Spivey made a point of acknowledging different factors that go into scoring a hole-in-one.
“It’s a rarity, but it’s luck,” he said. “It’s a lot of luck. You have to be able to give it a chance to go in there, but actually going in, there’s a lot of luck to it.”
This was actually Spivey’s fourth hole-in-one since he began playing golf about 31 years ago. He recalled the first one being at a course in Scotland Neck, N.C.
“I think it was the 12 hole on that one, 150 yards,” he said. “And the second one was in Baton Rouge, 215 yards.”
Spivey admits that there was a time when he did not have interest in playing golf.
“Well, I’m 73, and I started when I was 42, and I thought this was the dumbest game I’ve seen in my life ‘til I started to play it,” he said.
He eventually acquired a taste for the game and cites his 18-hole average as in the high 70s and low 80s.