Every golfer dreams of that elusive pot of gold at the end of the links rainbow.
That immortal shot which means you've joined as exclusive a club as there is on the planet.
The hole-in-one.
Kylie Frederick, the assistant pro at the Yellowknife Golf Club, is a part of the exclusive club as she does have an ace to her credit and she got the chance to hit another one at the club on Sunday.
A grand total of 300 chances, to be exact, but she couldn't find the bottom of the cup.
James McCarthy/NNSL photo
She wasn't doing it for show but as part of an interesting fundraiser for the club in which Frederick would hit that many golf balls off of the 14 th tee, which played at 137 yards for the day from tee to cup.
“I had one roll by the hole by about an inch and that got Cole (Marshall, head pro and general manager) dancing,” she said. “The closest one came to rest at 2 ft., 4 in.”
Marshall was serving as the witness at greenside if Frederick was able to turn the trick.
People bought squares at $20 a pop and one of two things would happen: if Frederick happened to slot one in from the tee, the club would collect the entire kitty. If that didn't happen, then the ball that ended up coming the closest to the hole would win.
The latter was determined by the number of the ball Frederick hit – all numbered 1 through 300 – matching up with the number of the square that was bought.
The idea of having such a fundraiser came courtesy of a YouTube video, said Frederick.
“Cole and Shaun (Morris, club president) saw the video and thought it would be a cool thing to try,” she said. “I thought it would be a good idea myself.”
Hitting that many golf balls would be a chore for anyone and Frederick admitted she was getting a bit sore down the stretch.
“It's like playing four rounds of golf in one day without putting,” she said. “Toward the end, I felt the grip starting to loosen and my back was getting sore. There were some swings I wish I had back but it was still lots of fun.”
The 14 th hole is a par-3 and par-3s are generally where golfers will drill an ace though there have been instances where a hole-in-one has been hit on a par-4.
Frederick said the possibility is always there but it all comes down to a lot of luck.
The conditions weren't exactly conducive to straight lines, either.
“The wind was really tough,” she said. “I'm a left-hander so I would try and play a cut on one shot and a draw on another.”
The club sold slightly less than half of the squares up for grabs with the winner walking away with close to $1,200 in winnings; the club's share of the purse will be put toward the general maintenance fund.
“Just for basic stuff like garbage bags, cleaning supplies, things like that,” said Morris. “We don't have any big projects this year because of the Covid situation and we didn't know what would come of that at the time.”
As for Frederick, she said she's up for another go-round at it if the chance arises.
“I had a lot of fun doing it,” she said.