East Bay amateur golfer, 71, hits his 13th hole-in-one
A hole-in-one is a dream for every amateur golfer. Benton Gross is no ordinary amateur.
The 71-year-old retired lawyer from Piedmont has made 13 holesin-one. The most recent came June 19 on the 155-yard 12th hole at Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland, his home course and the site of eight of his aces.
“You play a lot of golf,” Gross explained, “and sometimes you get lucky.”
Gross plays a lot of golf — 200 rounds a year, he estimates.
“If the course is open, you can expect him on the tee sheet,” said Anthony Best, a frequent playing partner who witnessed the most recent ace.
The odds of an average player making a hole-in-one are about 1 in 12,000, according to the National Hole in One Registry. One occurs about every 3,500 rounds of golf.
You can do the math. There is no universally recognized record for holes in one by amateur players, but a Southern California man named Norman Manley is widely recognized as the king of aces; he made 59 holes in one from 1964-1979, according to Golf Digest. The professional record is 11 by Kathy Whitworth. Hal Sutton and Robert Allenby have 10.
With Gross, it just might have
been his destiny.
He was about 5 years old when his father, Alfred, took him for an afternoon at Lake Merritt. It just so happened, there was a hole-inone competition.
Alfred, a golfer himself, sank one. The prize, according to Benton: $500 and a mention in the Oakland Tribune.
“And my dad says, ‘OK, I got a hole-in-one. That’s the best I can do. I’m giving up golf,’ ” Benton recalled. “Here I am 13 holes-in-one later and I’m still playing.”
With his frequent presence at Sequoyah Country Club, Gross has a reputation.
Reached by phone recently, the club’s food and beverage director, Sally Otsuka, recognized Gross immediately by name.
“He’s kind of infamous,” she said. “I’ve known him for a very long time and he’s a very nice person . ... He always makes me smile.”
Gross, Best and a couple other playing partners have an ongoing wager: make a hole-in-one, get $100 from everyone in the foursome.
Before calculating Gross’ winnings, the stakes were set a little more than a year ago, so he has cashed in only once. And he wasn’t first. Best made his first hole-inone a couple weeks before Gross made his 13th.
Gross made his first on Jan. 15, 1983. It came on the 12th hole of a course now known as the Berkeley Country Club, in El Cerrito.
“I’d just joined,” Gross said, “and I’m playing with my uncle. It was foggy and cold, because that’s the way that course is all the time.
“He said, ‘What are you going to hit?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna swing a 7-wood,’ and he said, ‘That’s not enough.’ So I swung really, really hard. Hooked the heck out of it. It hits the hill on the left, goes all the way down, across the green, hits the pin and drops in. I said, ‘See? I told you I had the right club.’”
His 11th ace was equally memorable, if not more. It came on the second anniversary of his mother’s death. It was Feb. 17, 2016, and Gross was teeing off from the 17th hole at Sequoyah, 216 yards away.
“It was dusk, and I hit a driver from the blue tee. I hit a low one, and it went off to the right; it kind of disappeared. It was a front pin, so I thought, ‘There’s a chance this might go in.’ We went up there and, sure enough, it was a hole-in-one.”
But when he picked up the ball, he noticed the emblem on it.
It said MG 2 (a brand of golf balls).
“MG is my mother’s initials, and it was a 2, the second anniversary of her death. On Feb. 17, on the 17th hole,” Gross said. “I’m sure she had something to do with that one.”
On June 19, on the 12th hole at Sequoyah, there came No. 13. With 155 yards to the hole, Gross opted for a hybrid 6-iron.
Two days earlier, he had narrowly missed acing the 217-yard 14th hole.
He could feel it coming. But he couldn’t see it.
“I hit it directly at the pin, and I lost it,” he recalled. “I had three playing partners. Two of them are yelling at it to go in. When they said it went in, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ”
“He laid it on the green and it was just perfectly on line,” Best said. “I watched it roll up and disappear, and another member of our group yelled, ‘It’s in!’ ”