Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Mike McGrath picked the perfect time to sink his first career ace, shooting a hole-in-one on the second hole during the Lennox and Addington County General Hospital Foundation golf tournament.
That shot made on Aug. 4 at the Napanee Golf and Country Club won him a brand-new 2021 GMC Terrain from Napanee’s Boyer Chevrolet Buick GMC. On Friday he stopped by the dealership to collect his prize.
“We couldn’t really see it,” McGrath recalled of his shot going in the hole. “We knew it was rolling good, but then (the spotter next to the hole) jumped out of chair at the top of the hill and the excitement kicked in. It was like a blackout situation I don’t really remember what I did.”
McGrath, an avid golfer, had seen his share of close calls but had previously always just missed the perfect shot.
“I had gotten it a couple inches or a couple of feet, but pretty close, a divot lands right beside the hole and the ball is like 20 feet passed. It was close but that the first one,” said McGrath. “If you’re going to get one you got to make it worth something.”
This year marked the first time in 24 years of offering the prize for the LACGH tournament that Peter Boyer actually had someone make the shot.
“A lot of figure you just win the car for a year, like a lease,” said Boyer, who owns the dealership along with his son Dustin. “But you win the car outright.”
The only cost to McGrath was the licensing fee.
Boyer, who helped found the tournament back in 1997, was taking part in this year’s tournament when McGrath made the once-in-a-lifetime shot. Boyer had resigned himself to the fact that it appeared as though no one would win the prize this year.
“We were one of the later tee offs, there was only two of three groups behind us,” recalled Boyer. “Nobody had won it and we thought nobody gets it this year. Then the very last group, (McGrath) puts it in the hole and it was just fantastic.”