When Willie Odom’s drive towards hole number 2 at the Yalobusha Country Club’s Two-Man Scramble Tournament disappeared, “I thought it had rolled off the back of the green,” he said.
With Odom at the June 7 event were his partner, Lynn Pearson, and another Batesville team, Jimmy Inmon and Jay Johnson. As Johnson walked toward the back of the green, Odom called to him to look for his ball.

“’It’s in the hole!’” Johnson replied.

That was the good news. With his hybrid club, Odom had driven the ball 175 yards into a target barely three inches in diameter.

The bad news was that the hole carried no hole-in-one bonus during that tournament. “’We had $10,000 on that hole two weeks ago,’” Odom said one of the hosting golfers told him.

Nevertheless, it was still Odom’s lucky day. “Three or four holes later, I got an eagle,” he said.

There was even enough good luck to spread around. A few days later, Johnson hit a hole-in-one on the number 14 hole at Panola Country Club.

Odom said that his Internet research leads him to believe that the odds against the single stroke shot are 8,000 to one.