‘Sometimes you get lucky’
Greenwich golfers celebrate holes in one at the Griff
GREENWICH — It’s the shot that most golfers only dream of making.
But the golfing gods were with Greenwich resident Michael Ambrosino on June 21 when he teed off at the 15th hole on the municipal Griffith E. Harris Golf Course and struck the ball so far and so well it went straight into the hole.
This hole in one was the third of the season at the Griff — but it was the first for Ambrosino after 20 years of playing the game.
“I thought this day would never come,” Ambrosino told Greenwich Time. “It had been a dream of mine always to get a hole in one, but I always thought it was too far-fetched to ever put much thought into it. As I hit it, everyone was telling me what a great shot it was and how high it was — but I didn’t think it was actually going to happen.”
Ambrosino was playing that Tuesday, as he usually does, with other members of the Retired Men’s Association and said the other three players in his foursome were even more excited than he was.
He couldn’t see the shot go in — but two of his friends did and they went crazy, jumping up and down, Ambrosino said. But he said he couldn’t celebrate until he walked to the green and took the ball out of the cup.
According to the Griff ’s head golf professional, Patrick Massi, the odds of making such a shot are enormous: For an amateur golfer, it’s close to 13,000 to 1. Even for a professional golfer on the tour, the odds are about 3,000 to 1.
“They’re hard to come by,” Massi said. “People play their whole careers, 70 and 80 years, and never get
a hole in one.”
A hole in one requires both skill and luck, said Massi, who has hit three in
his career. But he recalled once playing with a woman on her first round of golf ever — and she hit a hole
in one.
“Skill definitely increases the probability, but there is a
great element of luck involved as well,” Massi said. “I’ve seen the shots bounce off rocks and defy gravity to go in the hole. Luck plays a big role.”
And sometimes there might be a little divine intervention. Massi shared the story of town resident Peter Carino, who had the first hole of the season at the Griff on May 20.
Carino said his lifelong best friend Tom Conelias, who recently passed away, was a golf fanatic who had a similar once-in-a-lifetime shot right after his father died in 2009.
On the day of his father’s wake, Conelias played a round golf at the Griff to clear his head and sank his first hole in one that day.
That date was significant because it was also the birthday of Conelias’ son, who had been killed in a car accident years earlier when he was 10.
“He had told me that he had thought it was a sign that it happened on that day,” Carino said.
That date was May 20 — the same day this year that Carino landed his hole in one. And the two longtime friends both sank the holes-in-one on the same hole — the seventh at the Griff.
For Carino, it wasn’t a coincidence, coming just after the death of his friend on April 29.
“With all that wrapped up in it, with it being the same date and the same hole as my best friend had gotten it in, it was extra
special,” Carino said. “It kind of makes the hair stand up on your arm. It’s kind of a sign, I think.”
When the headstone arrives for Conelias, Carino said he hopes to have the ball buried with him because
he thought his friend “would get a kick out of that.”
For Ambrosino, who also enjoys playing with his friends, he said it was a “moment of joy” when he saw the ball in the hole.
“I love spending four to four-and-a-half hours with my friends talking and exchanging ideas and stuff,” Ambrosino said. “I don’t take the game that seriously. I typically shoot between 95 and 105 on a
round, but I just really enjoy talking with people. That’s the best part of the game for me.”
To mark this accomplishment, Massi is printing out a certificate from the PGA that can be framed, and
Ambrosino said he will hang that up in his den at home.
“Sometimes you get lucky,” Ambrosino said. “That’s all I can tell you.”