CINDY MAESHIRO

Oct. 1, 2006

Bay View Golf Links

Hole No. 4, 101 yards, driver

Against all odds, and with the golf gods giggling in the background, Cindy Maeshiro made a hole-in-one last month.

In her first official round of golf. With a driver, on Bay View Golf Links' fourth hole, playing 101 yards from the forward tee.

For those who have golfed a lifetime and have yet to hit golf's holy grail, you can be sick now.

"I am so undeserving of a hole-in-one," Maeshiro said. "I had no idea what a big deal it is."

She was so golf-naive she kept playing her orange ball, eventually losing it in the "duck pond" on the 15th hole. Maeshiro doesn't know what she shot because she and her friends find it too painful to count. She is still using borrowed clubs.

Someone told her later she owed everybody drinks. She gave her playing partners Starbucks gift cards.

Maeshiro, of 'Aiea, and three of her friends — all in their 50s — took up the game this summer for fun and to give themselves more time together. They took five lessons from Regan Lee at Pearl Country Club.

"Regan was an excellent teacher," Maeshiro said. "Very positive and encouraging. We were really junk."

When the session ended they asked Lee to take them on a course. It took them an hour to play Pearl's 10th hole and another hour for 11. By then it was getting dark. Lee drove them around the rest of the course and they went in.

The following week they got a 2 p.m. tee time at par-60 Bay View. When they got to No. 12 it was dark and they were called in.

On Oct. 1, they started 3 hours earlier, intent on finishing. Maeshiro finished the fourth hole in one mind-blowing swing. The exorbitant odds of getting a hole-in-one — anywhere from 5,000- to 12,000-to-1 for a "regular" golfer — have been mangled for all time.

"I can't believe what good luck I had and what happened," Maeshiro said. "It took a hop, a skip and, like mini golf, rolled to the hole and dropped in."

Meanwhile all those golfers who have gone years without an ace choked on their 9-irons.

Maeshiro offers them this comforting thought: "I don't think I'll get another hole-in-one until my next life."