{"id":53205,"date":"2020-06-17T20:27:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T02:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rawles-gets-a-trilogy-of-hole-in-one-glory\/"},"modified":"2020-06-18T02:27:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T02:27:05","slug":"rawles-gets-a-trilogy-of-hole-in-one-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rawles-gets-a-trilogy-of-hole-in-one-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Rawles gets a trilogy of hole-in-one glory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango\u2019s
Durango\u2019s Kirk Rawles poses for a photo on the 14th green at Dalton Ranch Golf Club on Tuesday after he made a hole-in-one on the par-3. It is his third career hole-in-one.<\/span>Courtesy of Anthony Flint<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Facing a tough hole location with 140 yards of water to carry, Kirk Rawles gripped the women\u2019s 8-iron in his hands and struck the golf ball high into a swirling breeze. The Titleist Pro VI golf ball seemed to float in the air forever before gravity began to pull it back to Earth. As the ball fell from the sky, it never found grass. It dunked directly into the cup for a rare hole-in-one.<\/p>\n

Rawles, the golf coach at Durango High School, made the ace Tuesday at Dalton Ranch Golf Club. It was the third hole-in-one of his life, and it gave him a stunning trio with one made at each of Durango\u2019s courses \u2013 Dalton Ranch, Hillcrest Golf Club and The Glacier Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so fortunate to have a hole-in-one on three different courses around here,\u201d Rawles said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how many have done that. I feel very lucky that it happened. There\u2019s so much luck involved in trying to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was laying in bed all night like, \u2018Did that just happen?\u2019 You take the apex of an 8-iron with the ball 90 to 100 feet in the air. You imagine being on the 10th story of a building and dropping a golf ball into a red plastic cup \u2013 what are the odds of it ever happening? In those conditions, you gotta be kidding me. I can\u2019t believe it went in the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ace came on Dalton Ranch\u2019s par-3 No. 14, which plays 156 yards from the black tees. The pin was placed in the front of the green and made the hole play about 146 yards, Rawles said. The wind is known to swirl on that hole with either a headwind or a crosswind. Rawles said both were present at around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday when he stepped to the tee.<\/p>\n

Instead of hitting his usual pitching wedge or even a 9-iron, he grabbed the 8-iron.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere the pin was, it was four paces on from the water. I couldn\u2019t hit a lower-flighted shot, and if it didn\u2019t get up high enough, it was just tough,\u201d Rawles said. \u201cI was gonna hit it into the wind, hit it over the water right of the pin with a little draw on it. It drifted over toward the pin and it just went straight down. It didn\u2019t even hit any grass, it just went right in the hole. It seemed like it was in the air forever, and we were all watching it not knowing if it would be short or long, but it went right down in the hole and sunk, didn\u2019t bounce out, didn\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Titleist Pro VI golf ball Kirk Rawles used to hit a hole-in-one on Tuesday at Dalton Ranch Golf Club.<\/span>Courtesy of Kirk Rawles<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The shot was witnessed by current DHS golf team member Anthony Flint, who lost the hole despite making a 25-foot birdie putt of his own, as well as Caleb Newman, who played for two years for Rawles with the Demons before moving to finish high school in New Mexico. Newman works at Dalton Ranch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it there,\u201d Flint asked as the trio watched the ball in the wind. \u201cIt should be,\u201d Rawles replied.<\/p>\n

It was dead on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d said Flint, who has a hole-in-one of his own made in 2018 at Hillcrest Golf Club\u2019s par-3 No. 12. \u201cThat hole is pretty hard. When we saw it in the air, it kept getting higher and higher. I knew it might be good. When we saw it just disappear and not come back out of the hole, it was insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawles would shoot an 11-over-par 83 for the round with the eagle on No. 14.<\/p>\n

The equipment<\/div>\n

Rawles, who now has a handicap of about seven strokes, normally uses forged irons made for skilled players. But it was a set of women\u2019s irons he had with him Tuesday. Rawles often will grab a women\u2019s iron when coaching the DHS girls team to show the players proper grip and address of the golf ball. DHS assistant golf coach Kermitt Barrett joked with Rawles that he always hits a great shot with a women\u2019s iron, which has a lighter shaft with an offset head that sits behind the shaft of the club. The set of Callaway Steelhead X-14 irons he used Tuesday are a full cavity back designed for players with a higher handicap.<\/p>\n

\"It
It was a set of women&#x2019;s Callaway Steelhead X-14 irons and a used Titleist Pro VI that Durango&#x2019;s Kirk Rawles carried for his round Tuesday, and the 8-iron delivered a hole-in-one on No. 14.<\/span>Courtesy of Kirk Rawles<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019ve been experimenting with some things,\u201d Rawles said. \u201cKermitt says I never miss with the girls clubs, so I figured I\u2019d try them for a round. This was the second round I put them in my bag. They are lighter than light can be, and I just stripe them. They go straight as an arrow. On that particular swing, it worked out great. It\u2019s pretty hysterical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Rawles was playing with a high-end ball, it didn\u2019t come new out of a box. It was a used Pro VI with a logo he did not recognize that he had found out on a course during a previous round. He continued to play with the ball all day Tuesday and realized Wednesday he should probably take it out of his bag.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky I didn\u2019t lose it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The first<\/div>\n

Rawles\u2019 first hole-in-one came Sept. 20, 2000. He was at The Glacier Club, formerly known as Tamarron.<\/p>\n

Back then, the hole was named \u201cNeedle.\u201d It was the sixth hole and played as a par-3 at 130 yards. Rawles, who at that time was a one- or two-handicap player, hit a gap wedge to the elevated green with the flag out of sight from the tee box.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t really see the green or see the ball land,\u201d Rawles said. \u201cA friend of mine, Craig Cahalane, drove by, and he was the assistant superintendent up there and helped me coach skiing at the time. He told me to hit it about right of the flag and that it should catch the slope and come back down to the flag. I couldn\u2019t see it at all. I went up and saw my ball mark on the green and walked over and saw the ball sitting in the hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty exciting, and Craig got me the flag that I have mounted with the scorecard and a picture of the friends I was playing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second<\/div>\n

The second ace for Rawles came on Hillcrest\u2019s No. 12. That hole can play as long as 195 yards from the black tees and also has to carry over water. On June 21, 2014, Rawles said it was playing 186 yards to the flag.<\/p>\n

Rawles wasn\u2019t even sure he would play golf that day. He was on the practice putting green with former DHS player Devon Pierce and saw two more of his former players, Trevor Bogus and Bo Ward, making the turn. Pierce and Rawles decided to hop on and play with them on the back-nine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI birded No. 10, birdied No. 11 and knocked it in the jar for a hole-in-one on No. 12. Those guys were just rolling their eyes at me,\u201d Rawles said. \u201cThat one was cool because I got to see it go in. The pin was front left, and the wind was blowing pretty good. I hit an 8-iron there and was yelling for it to get up. It got up, landed and I yelled, \u2018Go in.\u2019 It rolled six feet and right in the hole. We were all so excited, and the cart girl working the course was Myranda Crawford, who I coached on the Durango girls team. She drove by right after I knocked it in. It was so great to all celebrate together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always been really cool to have these moments with players I have coached. Those are kids you\u2019ve road tripped with and been with a lot going to different tournaments. To see them real excited is always a great experience. It\u2019s why you play the game, shots like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dalton Ranch full of oddities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2261,29,2343],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-golf","tag-newsletter","tag-sports-group"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53205"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}