Golfer Hammond Has Made 15 Holes-in-One

John Hammond has only one explanation for the 15 holes-in-one he’s made in 24 years of playing golf.

Plain, dumb luck.

“That’s all you can say about it,” he says with a broad smile and a shrug. “I don’t know how to do it. If I did, I’d be out playing pro golf. You just hit the ball at the hole and have to be lucky.”

Hammond, a 40-year-old amateur, has become somewhat of a folk hero around Springfield’s golf courses because of his knack for holing out a short tee shot -- a dream few golfers, amateur or professional, ever realize.

Experts say the odds of sinking a hole-in-one on a par-3 hole in one round on an 18-hole course with four par-3s are 5,000 to 1.

Hammond, who estimates his handicap at 3 or 4, once even aced a par-4.

“It wasn’t that exciting because I didn’t get to see it go in,” he said.

Thirteen of his aces have come in his native Springfield, including eight at the 18-hole Grandview Municipal Golf Course, where he’s holed out on each of the five par-3 holes.

Hammond’s first hole-in-one came at Grandview when he was 21. Working for a trucking company in the 1970s, he structured his deliveries to allow himself to play 36 holes as many as five days a week.

“It seemed I wouldn’t go a year without making a hole-in-one,” he said.

Hammond, who now works in real estate, had recorded 13 career aces when his closest golfing buddy died suddenly of cancer in 1982. Hammond soon lost his desire to play golf.

Hammond, who has won numerous local and regional tournaments and once finished ahead of Kansas City-born Tom Watson in a Missouri boys tournament, played only occasionally until this year, when the golf bug returned.

So did the holes-in-one.

On July 26, he aced the 151-yard fifth hole at the Fremont Hills Country Club with an 8-iron.

He didn’t pick up his clubs again until exactly two weeks later when, on the same hole, he got ace No. 15.

This one, Hammond says, is probably the most special of all because the moment was captured on videotape.

Hammond had brought along his new camcorder. Playing partner John Maritt was taping when Hammond stepped up to the fifth tee.

“John says, ‘Are you going to try to make a hole-in-one?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,”’ Hammond said.

“The shot was a little bit right of the hole. We didn’t think it had a chance going up there. But you really don’t think hole-in-one when you hit a shot. It hit about four feet from the hole and it was in.

“I mean, everybody started yelling and hollering. Everybody on the golf course knew I’d made a hole-in-one. My reaction is still disbelief at the odds of making two in a row. I’ve watched that tape probably 25 times at my house and I still can’t get over it.”

Hammond, who started playing golf at 16, says he’s had only one professional lesson in his life.

Hammond has a way to go to reach the amateur record of 59 holes-in-one held by Norman Manley of Long Beach, Calif. Mancil Davis of Woodlands, Texas, holds the record among professionals with 49.

Hammond says all of his aces have been exciting, but they don’t rank among his biggest thrills in golf.

“Winning a tournament when you hit a really good shot, or winning a tournament like (Springfield native) Payne Stewart did at the PGA, or making a putt on the last hole to win, that’s probably a greater thrill.”

Hammond thinks there’s another hole-in-one in his future.

“I would be surprised if I don’t make another, if I continue to play golf like I have been and play a lot,” he said.

A few days after his 15th ace, a big crowd gathered at hole No. 5 at Fremont Hills to watch Hammond try for three consecutive holes-in-one.

His tee shot sailed up, up, up ... and landed 30 feet short and left of the pin.

He chipped on and -- like mortal duffers everywhere -- promptly three-putted for double bogey.

“Can’t sink ‘em all,” he said with a laugh.