Vicksburg resident racks up third hole-in-one at age 77

It took Charlene Hughes half a century to score her first hole-in-one, and she still insists there’s no real skill to getting one. These days, however, she seems to have the magic touch.

Hughes, a 77-year-old Vicksburg native, recorded a hole-in-one on the 16th hole at Black Bear Golf Club in Delhi, La., while playing in a couples tournament on Sept. 6.

It was her third hole in one since she started playing golf nearly 60 years ago. All of them have come in the last eight years.

“It’s exciting,” said Hughes, who is a 10.3 handicap. “It’s just luck. It’s not skill to get a hole-in-one. Making a long putt is skill. Making a hole-in-one, the golf gods are just with you.”

Hughes’ previous hole-in-ones — one in 2006, the other in 2012 — both came at Mosswood Country Club in Port Gibson. The latest came at Black Bear, a more challenging course that is often ranked among the best in Louisiana.

She teed off on the 154-yard par-3 with a 5-hybrid and tried to keep the shot low to stay out of a brisk breeze. As it skimmed along the fairway, it just kept rolling straight at the hole until it plopped in.

She said her playing partners and hole-in-one witnesses John Duett, Bubba Hanks and Sissy Kern were more excited than she was about the hole-in-one. Hughes was just happy that it helped her team reach par for the round.

“It wasn’t high in the air, but it kept rolling and rolling,” Hughes said. “It was exciting. I thought, ‘When you least expect it, that’s what happens.’ That helped us shoot even par, with a one on that hole.”

Despite her nonchalance about the ace, it was the latest highlight in a successful golfing life for Hughes. She first picked up a club at the age of 19 at the urging of a boyfriend and has been playing ever since.

She won the super senior award for lowest gross score at the 2010 Mississippi Women’s Golf Association Senior State Amateur tournament, and competed in the same event this week at Lake Caroline Golf Club in Madison.

She narrowly missed shooting her age recently at Mosswood.

“I’m going to have to get older and keep playing to shoot my age,” she said with a laugh.

She’ll have plenty of opportunities. Hughes, a retired radiologist, hits the course at least twice a week. She said that, while she obviously enjoys the game, spending a few hours with family and friends is golf’s real appeal.

“The good thing about golf is you can always play with your family. I’ve got four brothers that play. In four hours of golf, you can have a lot of time with the family,” she said. “You know how they say every day on the golf course is better than a day at work? Well, with us older folks we like to say that every day on the golf course is better than being at a nursing home. At our age, we’re hacking.”