Eighty-year-old records first ace by using driver

Even before North Augusta's Betty Smith scored her first hole-in-one recently, she felt that making an ace involved more luck than skill.

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The 80-year-old still sees it that way.

"I've always thought they were pretty much an accident," said Smith, who has been playing golf for 32 years.

Her so-called accident happened June 8 on No. 2 at North Augusta Country Club, her home course. As often happens with aces, it came when Smith least expected it.

It was a windy day and the breeze was against her as Smith teed it up on the 127-yard hole. Her playing partners, Pam Schmidt and Barbara Davison, already had hit and missed the green.

"We were just fooling around, so I said, 'I'm going to hit my driver,' " said Smith, who normally hits a 5-wood on the hole.

The shot came off low and straight at the pin, but the group didn't see where it ended up because the green is elevated.

"They said they thought it went in," Smith said. "I said, 'Oh, no.' I guess it hit the pin and went in because it would have been in back of the green otherwise. I couldn't believe it. I really didn't think it had happened."

The ace capped off an exciting couple of months for Smith, whose nephew is Rick Smith, the swing coach for 2004 Masters Tournament champion Phil Mickelson.

"That was wonderful; he's been working with him (Mickelson) for a long time," Smith said of her nephew.

Smith, a 28-handicapper, shot 101 the day she made the hole-in-one.

"I don't worry about my score; I just enjoy playing and the company," said Smith, whose best-ever round is 86, when she was an 18-handicapper.

After the ace, Smith treated her playing partners to glasses of wine in the clubhouse.

"It's been fun (since the hole-in-one)," Smith said. "When we play now, everybody says to me, 'Betty, are you going to get a hole-in-one today?' I say, 'no, I don't imagine so.' "

In the excitement of making the ace, Smith lost track of the ball she hit into the hole. Even after the round, she didn't save it as a memento to her achievement.

"I didn't even think about that," Smith said, noting that she's "new at this."

Smith said she doesn't even know what brand ball she used for the ace.

For the first 47 years of her life, Smith never imagined playing golf. That changed in 1972, when her husband, Clarence, gave her a set of golf clubs as a Christmas present. The couple had just moved to North Augusta from East Lansing, Mich.

"I thought he was crazy. I said, 'What will I do with these?'" Smith said. "My children were all in school then, so I used to just go out to North Augusta Country Club and play by myself. My husband traveled a lot and was gone a lot. Apparently, he wanted me to take up golf to give me something to do to get out of the house."