Kathleen Ekey stood on the 18th tee box at Alaqua Country Club ready for her final practice hole before the Epson Tour Championship starts on Thursday. She debated the wind with her brother and caddy, Byron, then pulled a 5-iron and made the second hole-in-one of her career. The hole was playing 171 yards to the pin.
Talk about momentum heading into the season finale.
“Once I hit it, I thought it was a pretty good shot and you could see the wind bring it close towards the hole,” explained Ekey. “It landed, rolled and then disappeared and then I was like ‘oh my gosh’ and it was really cool.”
Her first ace came at a corporate outing in the Bahamas and has a funny story attached to it.
She was in the Bahamas with the organizing group that runs the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic and was hosting a junior clinic. A young girl asked Ekey if she ever made a hole-in-one.
“I was like I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but I’ve never had a hole-in-one,” recalled Ekey. “I tell her this and then John Marovich, one of the guys that runs the tournament, said ‘she’s going to have one today’ and we all started laughing."
You guessed it. Two hours later, while playing in the pro-am with Marovich, Ekey made her first career ace.
Fate.
Maybe her second career ace is a sign of good things to come this weekend.
After completing her practice round and talking about the ace, Ekey couldn’t help but heap praise on Alaqua Country Club and the condition of the course considering Hurricane Matthew hit less than one week ago.
“I’m so impressed with the job they have done,” said Ekey. “Number one, it was so nice of them to host us this week so we got to play and number two when I got back here yesterday and played the front nine, I was really, really surprised and almost blown away at how good the golf course looked.”
Ekey currently ranks 53rd on the money list and a win this week could propel her to Final Stage of LPGA Qualifying Tournament.
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