Liz Bickerton is 74 and had never made a hole-in-one. It was on her bucket list, though.
“I never thought I’d get it,” she said.
On Nov. 17, Bickerton put two in that bucket.
The Eagle Creek Golf & Country Club member was playing at Cedar Hammock, and made two aces in the same round.
“I’m still shaking my head,” Bickerton said Monday. “I get all of these messages, and I’m like ‘Did that really happen?'”
Bickerton is from Canada, just outside Toronto, but has been at Eagle Creek for 18 years. She and her husband, Brian, began coming down to Southwest Florida to visit Bickerton’s parents, and then ended up getting their own place.
Bickerton and her group of Sue Anthony, Adele Reynolds and Cynthia Torokvei, all friends, started on the back nine. They were playing Cedar Hammock as part of a reciprocal since Eagle Creek has been undergoing a renovation, but is scheduled to reopen soon.
Bickerton had played Cedar Hammock maybe one other time, but not recently. When the group got to No. 14, an 80-yard par 3 and their fifth hole of the day, Bickerton pulled out a 7-iron and looked at the green.
“I don’t hit a long ball, but I’m always straight,” she said. “This is kind of in my wheelhouse.”
Bickerton hit the ball and went onto the green and started rolling.
“Wait a minute. Watch it!” her playing partners said.
And it rolled into the cup.
“We all kind of jumped around,” she said, adding people in the townhouses nearby who were watching started applauding.
Bickerton called her husband, who was playing a round at Royal Palm, to let him know. At first, he didn’t believe her.
“You did not,” he said.
“I did too,” she said.
The group continued their round and came around to another par-3, the 88-yard No. 4. This one was over water. Bickerton already had taken the ball she used to make her first ace out of play, and wasn’t optimistic what was going to happen on this hole.
“I kind of kissed the ball goodbye because I figured it’d go in the water,” she said.
Bickerton pulled out her trusty 11-wood, though, and hit the shot. The ball got over the water and began rolling on the green.
“It can’t be, it can’t be,” her playing partners said.
Then it dropped in the hole.
She called her husband again to say she made another one.
“I know, you already told me,” he said.
“No, I had another one,” she said.
Her husband has had two.
“He’s mad because I caught him,” she said with a chuckle.
Bickerton said a few days later, one of her playing partners was catching a flight, and was sitting next to a man at the airport who mentioned that his group was playing behind this woman who had made two holes-in-one.
“That’s one of my best friends,” she told him.
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