Still in a state of disbelief, Pon then took his second shot from 120 yards away, aiming for the only thing he could see - the very top of the flag. “It had to hit a cart path or a sprinkler.” “I was like, ‘Holy smokes, how did it get down there?’ ” Pon said. Sure enough, there was Pon’s yellow ball with its black dot, somehow making it where few others have gone off the tee. Suddenly, they both looked toward the bottom of the hill in time to see a man in a cart point to the ground and quickly drive away. Until both he and Lee realized they had no idea where his ball was.ģM Open: Matthew Wolff has ‘love’ for Twin Cities despite failing to defend title Pon, who admitted he gave it “a little extra,” was feeling pretty good about his shot while driving his cart down the hill. “Kevin really smacked the hell out of it, man,” Lee said of the drive that faded slightly to the right and around the tree-lined fairway as it quickly disappeared from vision. Ordinarily, Pon hits his driver about 280 yards. Pon was sitting at 6-over with a 71 when he got ready for the mammoth, elongated U-shaped 18th with the hole roughly eight blocks away from the tee box. But I’ve always done well at that course,” said Pon, who shoots in the high 70s or low 80s on most courses. “People either hate that course or love it. Still, Pon was in a time crunch that day with a family obligation that afternoon, so he hustled straight to the course - which he says he’s probably played a hundred times - without his golf gear, dressed only in blue jeans and a polo shirt, thankful he still had his golf shoes in his trunk. In years past, Pon would have declined, but he’s been playing once a week for about two years now after his decade-long hiatus. Pon agreed that day was filled with fortunate events for him, beginning with the morning phone call he received from Lee, inviting him to join him for a round. It may have hopped and went a hundred yards, then hopped again and went another hundred yards. Then he saw a picture of Chabot’s steep 18th hole, with its cart path zig-zagging across the fairway all the way down the hill, and better understood. Stewart admitted he was incredulous when he first heard Pon’s drive went more than 500 yards. Jerry Stewart of the Northern California Golf Association, a former journalist and thus a skeptic by nature, recently verified Pon’s score as “legit” after an investigation. Before Pon’s rare feat, the last condor was in 2007, when a 16-year-old aced a 511-yard hole in New South Wales, Australia. cut the corner on a dogleg for an ace on a 480-yard hole. In golf’s history, there were just four previous condors reported through 2018 - all of them holes-in-one on par 5s, starting in 1962 when a golfer in Hope, Ark. Loons to travel to Columbus Crew for Leagues Cup knockout match She had shared a love of golf with him, having played 2-3 times per week herself before her death. His mother-in-law, Irene Tekawa, had passed away at 83 less than two months earlier. “It’s like I’ve been telling people, ‘You know, this has been a weird year.’ “īizarre enough for Pon to wonder if he got some help from beyond. I didn’t even see the ball come to rest on either of those two shots,” said Pon, who estimates he now carries a 10 handicap after giving up the sport for 10 years to focus on time with his young kids. Then by using a pitching wedge to hole in from 120 yards on a blind shot to the elevated pin. First by launching a 540-yard drive from the top of the hill that somehow bounced, rolled and finally landed at the bottom of the hill. Welcome to the quirky world of the nearly 700-yard 18th hole at Lake Chabot Golf Course, where anything goes, and goes and goes on the steep slope high atop the Oakland hills, home to one of the only par-6 holes west of the Mississippi.īetter known for its eccentricities - like the two-lane road that pits driver against driver for the precarious right of passage through the fairway - it may soon be renowned for something much more unique: the spot where the only condor (a minus-4 score) on a par-6 hole in United States golf history was recorded.Ĭonfused? Imagine what went through Kevin Pon’s mind last month when the 54-year-old Castro Valley man shocked even himself. An East Bay golfer playing in blue jeans and using a bright yellow ball hit two straight miraculous shots - not seeing where either landed - to touch off a once-in-a-lifetime celebration no one truly understood.
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