Golfer, at 70, Is in a Hole Other League

Donna Duke, a Camarillo woman who turned 70 recently, shot a hole in one last year.

Oh, you say, isn’t that marvelous--an older person doing something that requires such sharpness, such strength, such skill. Go, Donna!

But when you hear about her 47 other holes in one in the past 16 years, mere congratulations don’t do the job. Questions arise:

* Is it divine intervention?

* Do angels stash Duke’s Titleists under their wings and plop them in the cup?

* Is there some bizarre brain wave at work here? Can Duke also bend spoons?

I claim no answers and neither does she.

“It’s just so much luck,” she says. “I’ve got about 20 lives worth of it.”

With millions of other golfers, Duke spent last weekend glued to the tube, observing the already legendary performance of Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open.

“He’s in a whole other world,” she says admiringly.

Others would say the same of her.

Duke is not a professional golfer by any stretch. She’s a retired Point Mugu financial analyst who heads various civic committees at the Leisure Village retirement community, where she lives. She took up golf in earnest only because a bad back permanently sidelined her from bowling when she was around 50.

In a few years, some funny things started to happen.

Duke’s first hole in one was in 1984 at the Ojai Valley Country Club.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “How could I do this when so many other people couldn’t? I figured it was a lot of luck, and still think that’s so.”

Then holes in one started raining upon her, a plague of aces.

In 1985 alone, she tallied 12--a record that invited both admiration and skepticism. An editor at Golf Digest, the official chronicler of holes in one, suggested Duke had fabricated at least one of the aces to set a record. The Guinness Book of World Records turned up its nose; an official of the volume that lauds the world’s fastest talker and longest hair described Duke’s claim as “rather freakish.”

So be it, Duke says.

All 48 of her aces were witnessed by other players in her various foursomes, all were shot on regulation courses, and all were as legitimate as play-it-where-it-lies.

Of course, the numbers are bound to raise eyebrows.

With 48 aces, Duke has 47 more than Karrie Webb, the reigning champion of the Ladies Professional Golf Assn.

“It’s remarkable,” LPGA spokeswoman Pixie Kloiber said. “Just remarkable.”

Most golfers go through a lifetime on the links without that single shot they’ll cherish the rest of their days. Statisticians peg an amateur’s chances at one in 12,000.

Dave Sepulveda, a pro at the Camarillo Springs course, can’t explain it. “Donna is a good player and she’s certainly capable,” he said, “but I’ve only had eight holes in one in my entire life. It’s baffling.”

Duke can’t explain it either. She just keeps her head down and does the half-swing she learned years ago to accommodate her injured back. Then she lets luck--or whatever--handle the rest.

“She hits a good ball and it’s usually pretty straight,” said Eileen Beach, a golfing partner who witnessed Duke’s most recent hole in one, at Sunset Hills. “When it’s like that, it’s almost like Tiger.”

On the other hand, Tiger doesn’t have arthritis, never had to overcome cancer, and doesn’t need glasses for distance.

It’s been 18 months since Duke has scored a hole in one. But with a full plate of committee meetings at Leisure Village, she doesn’t get out on the course as much these days.

Has her amazing chain of aces ended?

The question is as ripe with cosmological implications as: How many angels can dance on the head of a golf tee?

“Sometimes I do think maybe it’s over,” she says, “but if it is, it is. It’s one of those things.”

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.