The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Golfer had three aces up sleeve in 2019
Painesville Township man has seven all time
Carrie Mayer knew what her husband was going to say before he even said it.
Jim Mayer doesn’t make a habit of calling his wife while he is playing a round of golf with his buddies, unless something extraordinary happens.
On Sept. 26, 2019, it did. Just like it did on July 21 and June 8.
“I picked up the phone and he said, ‘Carrie,’” she reminisced of the Sept. 26 phone call. “All I said was, ‘You did NOT.’”
He did.
A hole-in-one.
For the third time in just over four months.
Most people go an entire lifetime without getting a hole-in-one on the golf course. Jim Mayer, a 67-year-old from Painesville Township, has seven of them — three coming last summer.
“We all joke that it was ‘The Summer of Jim Mayer,’” said his nephew Bill Mayer.
Mayer himself has another theory.
“Lucky,” he said. “It just means I’m very lucky. That’s all.”
The odds of a golfer recording a hole-in-one are 1-in-12,500.
The odds of a golfer doing it three times in a year, plugging that figure into a binomial distribution, are roughly 1-in-20 million.
“Like I said - lucky,” Mayer quipped.
A retired auto mechanic who carries an 11 handicap on the course, Mayer drained all three of his holes-in-one last summer at Madison Country Club. He used an A-wedge on hole 10 on both June 8 and Sept. 26 when he recorded his aces, and used a 6-iron on hole 15 for his July 21 gem.
“I didn’t even watch two of them go in,” he said. “I knew I hit the shot well and it was on line. I turned around and a friend with me said, ‘It went in the hole! It went in the hole!’ I didn’t even know.”
His wife marvels at his propensity for making
holes-in-one.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “He always calls me. The first time I was thrilled. The second time I was like, ‘I can’t believe you did it again.’ The third time I said, ‘You did NOT.
“It’s amazing because most people don’t get a hole in one.”
Mayer has loved golf from a young age. He and some friends — including his brothers Bill and Tim, as well as recently retired News-Herald writer David S. Glasier — worked as caddies at the old Tam-arac Country Club in Willoughby when they were in sixth grade.
That gave them time, and opportunity, to play a little golf.
A handful of years later, he recorded his first ace, making the gem at Vinks Golf Course, a nine-hole course on the plot of land where The News-Herald office now sits.
“I was 19,” Mayer said. “I was with Carrie, my future wife. I just took her out for a round, and that’s when I got my first one. And here we are, still together almost 48 years later.
“I never imagined it would be my first of seven. I guess that is pretty neat.”
Not only did he have three aces last year, but he also won the Wells Fargo golf league at Madison Country Club and carded a career-best round of 68 along the way.
“Uncle Jim had a great summer with the boys last year,” Bill Mayer said.
Added Glasier, “He’s always been a good golfer. He had a really good year last year. A really, REALLY good year, and not just because of the holes-in-one.”
As happy as he is with his seven gems, he’s just as happy with the hole-in-one his wife recorded 14 years ago. He calls it “the best emotion I could ever had.”
Maybe for an alternate reason.
“She was mad at me because I told her what club to hit,” he said with a chuckle.
Carrie got on the phone and explained.
“Oh my gosh! He made me switch clubs, and I was so mad,” she said. “We were at Powderhorn. I didn’t even take a practice swing. I was mad at him, so I just went up there,
whacked it and turned around. Next thing I know they’re all jumping up and down screaming.
“I always say I’m a hacker who got a hole-in-one. I’ll have him put that in my obituary someday.”
While 2019 certainly shaped up to the ‘The Summer of Jim Mayer,’ as his friends rib him about his aces, 2020 has gotten off to a little bit of a slow start because of the restrictions due to the coronaviruse pandemic, as well as Mother Nature’s string of chilly mornings.
But Mayer said he’s been out on the course enjoying the game he loves.
“Sometimes five times a week,” he said of his summers since he has retired. “I don’t play when the temperatures are in the 30s or low 40s. If it’s over 45, I’m usually going to be out there.”
And on those days, if Carrie Mayer’s phone rings and it’s her husband on the other line calling from the course, she will gladly pick up the call.
Even though history shows she already knows what her husband is going to say.