A DOZEN ACES, A DOZEN MYSTERIES : THEY’RE 1s FOR THE BOOK

“You don’t have a streak like mine without just a ton of luck. I’m not kidding myself. It’s eerie. I’ve never thought about trying for a hole in one, it’s just happened. I always aim for the stick, but you never dream you can do it. If I thought about it,

I’d probably miss the green.”

--DONNA DUKE, Camarillo Springs

Donna Duke’s Holes in One

Date Course Hole Length Club Sept. 22, 1984 Ojai Valley 17th 110 yards 7 iron Nov. 11, 1984 Kauai Surf Club 17th 139 yards 5 iron Jan. 16, 1985 Saticoy Regional 16th 194 yards 3 wood Jan. 21, 1985 Clark, Pt. Mugu 11th 153 yards 7 iron Jan. 22, 1985 Camarillo Springs 12th 163 yards 7 wood Jan. 23, 1985 Saticoy Regional 16th 194 yards 5 wood Jan. 30, 1985 Saticoy Regional 7th 213 yards driver March 5, 1985 Camarillo Springs 15th 134 yards 6 iron March 12, 1985 Camarillo Springs 12th 163 yards 5 wood March 21, 1985 North Kern County 7th 135 yards 6 iron April 1, 1985 Saticoy Regional 8th 160 yards 7 wood April 23, 1985 Camarillo Springs 7th 140 yards 7 wood

They didn’t believe Donna Duke, so they called her a liar. And when that didn’t stop her, they set out to prove her wrong.

What was really going on out there on the greens? Was she kicking it in? Was she rolling it in? Maybe she was simply writing 1 on her score card.

They had to find out, so they followed her. Maintenance workers she had never seen on the course before started peeking around trees at her.

They spied on her, but never saw her cheat. All they did was make break her concentration and make her mad. They did that, all right, but they haven’t stopped her streak.

Since Sept. 22 of last year, Donna Duke has 12 holes in one. That’s right, twelve. Ten of them have come this year, including three on successive days. Five of the aces were made in January, three in March.

One came on April Fool’s Day. Honest.

Duke, 54, is not a professional golfer. She’s a retired civil service worker who plays golf two or three times a week. Her home course is in Camarillo Springs, not Palm Springs, and she would just as soon work in her garden at home than whack a golf ball around a manicured lawn all day.

She is an unlikely, and unwilling, celebrity. She says she almost fainted after she watched her first ace fall into the hole. That was on the 110-yard 17th hole at the Ojai Valley Country Club. “Good thing it was on 17,” Duke said. “My knees were shaking so bad I barely made it off the course.”

She says she reacts the same way every time, and who could blame her? Duke had been playing for 14 years before the start of the streak, and never had an ace. Spooky, she says. Unbelievable, say her doubters.

Yes, there are those who do not believe. Lots of them. Duke says that at one course she regularly plays, people are starting to follow her around. Not curious onlookers, but skeptical employees of the golf course.

“I guess they think I’m kicking it in or something,” Duke said. “Maybe they think I have a trained pet gopher who is picking the ball up with his teeth and dropping it in the hole. I don’t know. I’m as mystified as anyone else about this whole thing.”

Keep in mind that everyone who has heard of Duke’s feat has good reason to be a little incredulous.

The holes that were aced do not have windmills or little AstroTurf trails leading to the cup. No, these holes are not on miniature golf courses. They range in length from 110 to 213 yards. One was a par 4.

The listed odds of an average golfer making a hole in one in a single round of golf is 8,000 to 1. Consider the odds of hitting 12 since last September.

If Duke played a round three times a week during that span, she would have played about 93 rounds by now. That’s an ace every 7.75 rounds, or about one every 2 1/2 weeks.

Mind-boggling. Pretty expensive, too.

In golf, there is an unwritten rule that says the person who gets a hole in one buys a round of drinks on the 19th hole--the clubhouse.

Duke estimates that each of the aces have cost her between $30 and $50.

When she aced the 135-yard 7th hole in a tournament at the North Kern Golf Course in Bakersfield, there were 180 golfers on the scene. Luckily, the course had insurance that covered her up to $500 dollars to pay for the drinks.

Duke attributes her streak of aces to good club selection, hitting a straight ball and lots of luck. Heavy emphasis is put on that last factor.

“You don’t have a streak like mine without just a ton of luck,” Duke said. “I’m not kidding myself. It’s eerie. I’ve never thought about trying for a hole in one, it’s just happened. I always aim for the stick, but you never dream you can do it. If I thought about it, I’d probably miss the green.”

That’s why the thought of people checking on her is irritating.

“I don’t care about people watching, but when I know the only reason they are is because they don’t believe me, it’s enough to throw me off. There’s too much pressure. I start thinking too much, and Lord knows I’m dangerous when I start thinking.”

Duke felt the worst pressure in January when she aced holes on three consecutive days at three different courses. Lois Haines, assistant editor of Golf Digest, believes that was an unprecedented achievement. The magazine verifies all reported holes in one.

“All I could think about were the holes in one,” Duke said. “That’s all people were talking about. It was getting scary. My stomach was turning all the time. The pressure was too much. I felt I had to take a week off.”

So she did. But it didn’t work.

On her second day back, she aced another hole.

Finally, she got a break. Six weeks passed before she got another one.

Said Duke: “That was a peaceful time. I enjoyed myself more during that stretch than I had through all the holes in one. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my nice quiet golf game, without all the hullabaloo.”

But then came her April Fool’s Day ace. Not exactly the thing to do when you’re trying to convince people you’re telling the truth.

Duke doesn’t blame people for being cynical.

“If I hadn’t seen them myself, I probably wouldn’t believe it either,” Duke said. “Anyone who knows me knows I don’t have a dishonest bone in my body. There’s nothing I can do to prove to people who don’t believe me that I’m telling the truth.”

Actually, Duke does have one big advantage over her skeptics. Witnesses. Twenty-five of them.

Each of her holes in one have been verified by at least three other golfers, who have then signed certification cards at the course.

The card is then signed by the course’s pro and sent to Golf Digest, which checks with each witness before verifying the ace.

Shirley Green plays in the same women’s league as Duke at Camarillo Springs. She says that before she played golf in a foursome with Duke, she had never seen her before.

Green says she has witnessed two of Duke’s holes in one. Before, she had questioned the authenticity of Duke’s claims. Not anymore.

“When she had four or five, you’d hear the men saying that they couldn’t believe she had so many,” Green said. “Well, I’ve played with her and seen it myself. I don’t know how she does it, but I know it has happened, at least the two times I’ve seen. My husband’s been playing golf for 40 years. He can’t figure it out either.”

Una Berkowsky has also witnessed two of the aces. She had never seen a hole in one before Duke dropped in No. 7 on the 213-yard 7th hole at Saticoy Regional.

“It was an honor just to be there,” Berkowsky said. “Everyone in our foursome had seen a hole in one before, but I hadn’t. I had played with her before, and I knew she hit the ball straight, but I no idea what it was like to actually be there when something like that happened. It was amazing. I was shaking just having watched it happen. I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually make one myself. To her, it happens so often.”

Duke says at least half her witnesses are not friends, but, like Green, are simply acquaintances in the same golf league.

Irene Cunningham, Duke’s roommate, says she sometimes has wished she was just an acquaintance. She says she has seen three of the aces and doesn’t want to see another.

“People would say she was lying and I was swearing to it,” Cunningham said.

Experts say that the most incredible aspect about the streak is the time span in which it has been accomplished.

A Ladies Professional Golf Assn. spokesman said no one on its tour has 12 career aces. The LPGA media guide lists Murle Breer, Kathy Cornelius and Sandra Palmer with four each.

The record for aces in a calendar year listed by Golf Digest is well within Duke’s reach. She is one behind the 11 made by Dr. Boyd Stone of Bakersfield in 1962.

According to the magazine, the record for career aces is 54, set by Norman Manley of Long Beach. There is no career record listed for a woman.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, however, the record for career aces is 66--by Harry Lee Bonner of San Rafael, Calif. Most of Bonner’s aces have been made at his own 9-hole course, however. Duke’s have come on six different courses.

Duke says that setting a record is not a goal. All it does, she says, is add to people’s expectations for her.

“It’s gotten to the point that everyone expects me to make one every time out,” Duke said. “They ask me on the first hole, ‘So Donna, are you gonna get another one today?’ I don’t even like to think about it.

“I often think I’d be better off if I’d never made a whole in one,” she said. “Golf used to be all fun for me. Lately, it’s been a strain.”

Maybe so, but it’s also made life hectic for a few others.

Examples:

Titleist, which makes the Pinnacle brand golf balls that Duke uses, heard of her streak and thought they would present her with a gift of a dozen balls, all personalized with the number 8.

That’s how many aces she had at the time.

Problem was, by the time she got the balls, she had 11.

Even a local trophy maker has been stumped. One of the show pieces in Duke’s Camarillo home is a large trophy designed to display the balls Duke used for her aces. It was originally designed for six balls. When her streak hit 11, there was no more room.

Then, No. 12. Said Duke: “I guess we’ll have to start adding tiers.”

Duke is a good golfer. A 15 handicapper. But good enough to make 12 aces in seven months?

Not even the editor of the American edition of the Guinness Book of World Records could believe it.

Reached by telephone at his office in London, Norris McWhirter was asked if Duke’s mark was a record for a women.

Said McWhirter: “I would be rather incredulous of that number. I think that what happens is that golfers sometimes pick out a certain particular hole that they like and they tend to run up rather large numbers that way.”

McWhirter, however, was unaware Duke had aces on six different courses.

“Hmmm. Sounds rather freakish to me,” he said.

“Freakish?” And this from the editor of a book which includes a record for “longest distance claimed for catching a grape in the mouth that has been thrown from a site on the same ground level.”

Nancy Bannon, the LPGA teaching professional at Saticoy Regional, believes the streak is legitimate. She says Duke consistently hits the ball far enough and straight enough to run off a string of aces.

“Donna plays good golf, and anytime you play well and have an optimum of good luck, strange things can happen,” Bannon said. “Right now, she’s getting all the right bounces. She didn’t have one for 14 years. She may never have another one, but that doesn’t mean her current streak is a lie.

“Her streak is something that is going to be debated on the 19th hole for a long time. I know she has a good golf swing, and I also know that she’s not taking her two best friends out on the course all the time and coming in and saying she’s had an ace.”

John Colby, the pro at Camarillo Springs, is another Duke backer. He’s never seen her play, but has met her.

“She just doesn’t seem like the type of person who would make something like that up,” Colby said. “Her lady friends don’t either. It’s tough to imagine a person piling up that many aces in such a short time, but when you consistently put the ball on the green, there’s always the chance it’ll roll in.”

But 12 times? The question remains: How?

If only Duke had the answer.

“I don’t know how, or why,” she said. “It’s just happened. Maybe it’s in the stars.”

And maybe she’s right. Maybe there is no final answer.

A trained gopher? Naaah, who would believe that?