Queen of Aces Marks Return From Hiatus

If putting a golf ball into the hole on the green from a fairly long distance is pure luck--as golfers who have never done it firmly believe--then call Donna Duke of Camarillo “Dame Fortune.”

After a stretch of more than two years during which she underwent surgery for cancer and seldom played golf, Duke is back, ringing up holes-in-one at an alarming rate. Well, alarming only to others.

Her latest ace came in June when, playing in the thin air at 5,500 feet in Sedona, Ariz., she hammered a driver on a par-4, 274-yard hole and knocked the ball into the cup.

It was the 32nd hole-in-one for Duke, 60, the first coming in 1984. It is a remarkable streak and, to some, an unbelievable one too.

Lois Hains, an assistant editor at Golf Digest, the magazine that officially recognizes such accomplishments, got into a bit of a spat with Duke in 1985, the year Duke claimed 14 aces. The 12th, at a 275-yard dogleg at Point Mugu Golf Club, was not recognized by Hains, who said it did not count because no one in Duke’s group actually saw the ball go into the cup. But that’s where they found it.

Despite an explanation--it was a dogleg; the green was not visible from the tee and no one could possibly have seen it go in--Hains stood her ground.

The two have not spoken much since, and Duke has stopped applying for official recognition from Golf Digest. She does, however, continue to receive a certificate from a Golf Digest advertiser for each ace.

The fantastic streak of aces--accomplished while playing with many different golfing partners and sometimes even a golf-course worker--was put on hold two years ago. Duke said she was not sure it would ever resume.

But slowly, she came back from the cancer surgery. And slowly, her game and her uncanny ability for sticking a golf ball at a flag stick came back too.

The drought was broken with a downpour in March when Duke recorded career aces 29 and 30 during the same round in Maui. Both came on the back nine on holes of approximately 130 yards.

“And on the second hole, a 96-yarder, I missed by two inches,” Duke said.

Ace No. 31 came in June at Black Lake Country Club near Santa Maria. And that one even shocked Duke.

“It was a short hole, and I thought I hit too much club,” she said. “Right behind the green was water, and when I walked up I started looking along the edge of the pond. I was sure I had gone over the green. Then, one of my partners looks over at me and says, ‘What are you looking for?’ When I told her she said, ‘It’s right here. In the cup.’

“I couldn’t believe it.”

Her latest ace came in July at the Sedona Country Club. Playing with a friend, Irene Cunningham of Camarillo, Duke said she was amazed at how far they were hitting the ball.

“It was at least two clubs further than I’d ever hit a ball before,” she said. “And I was really hitting the ball well.”

On the 11th hole, downhill and measuring 274 yards, Duke unloaded a bomb that carried over a tree on the right side of the fairway, dropped onto the green and rolled into the cup. A startled course worker, who was raking a trap alongside the green, nearly had to have his eyes pushed back into his disbelieving head.

“He even signed my scorecard for me, attesting to the hole-in-one,” Duke said. “So I’ll get another certificate. I can wallpaper my house with them.”

Golf--and life--is once again fun.

“I’m feeling really good and playing really good,” she said. “I’ve been shooting 75s and 78s and 80s. I shot a 79 on Friday at Camarillo Springs and an 82 over the weekend at Elkins Ranch (near Fillmore).

“I don’t know why I’m playing so well again. I just know that I love golf so much it’s pathetic. There’s nothing like it.”

Getting oriented: Allison Wilson, 14, of North Hollywood, leaves Monday for Nagoya, Japan, where she will compete in the Japan Cup against junior golfers from around the world.

Wilson, who will be a freshman at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Reseda, qualified for the tournament with a strong showing in the Optimist World Championships in San Diego in July. Earlier this summer, she won a junior tournament at Los Coyotes Country Club in Buena Park and another tournament in Mission Viejo.

She made the stroke-play cut in the U.S. Golf Assn. Junior championships in Wichita, Kan., last month and shot a 74 in the first round of match play but still lost that match. The Japan Cup will be played Aug. 30-Sept. 1.

Special event: The 17th Frank Kowski Memorial tournament will be played Sept. 16 at Sunset Hills Golf Course in Thousand Oaks.

The event honors the late southwest regional director of the National Park Service. A portion of the proceeds will go to a scholarship fund for children of National Park Service employees.

Information: 818-597-1036.