Houston native Mark Wehring, one of the early SoHG men and hickory veteran of no small accomplishments (many championships here and abroad), reports on two of his aces. Both were scored in 2009. The first came on Feb. 28 at the Champions Golf Club, Cyprus Creek Course near Houston. Mark recalls it was the 150-yard 16th hole. He used a Stewart mashie with “E E Foord WJF” cleek marks. He was accompanied by Trey Wilkinson, John Wilkinson and Pat Kiley. (Click here for two 2009 Houston Chronicle articles about Mark, which cover both his passion for hickory golf and his Texas hole-in-one.)
Later that year, Mark, who enjoys hickory competitions in Great Britain, scored another on May 18 on the Coxmoor Golf Club, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, England. This came during the Central English Hickory Championship on the 128-yard seventh. The weapon for this accomplishment was a Stewart Maiden, H&B Regis EM-3, stainless 8/niblick.
Perhaps as priceless as scoring an ace with hickories in Great Britain was his playing partner, Alec Shepperson of the Coxmoor GC, who played on the 1957 and 1959 British Walker Cup teams. His opponents for those matches were Jack Nicklaus, then Tommy Aaron at Muirfield. Also on hand to see the ace was John Hanna (a long-time Through the Green contributor and good friend of hickory golf) from Belfast, Ireland and the Malone GC. Mark included the following two links for those who might wish to read about those early Walker Cup matches.
http://www.walkercup.org/news/1959walkercup.html
http://gsrpdf.lib.msu.edu/ticpdf.py?file=/1950s/1959/590608.pdf
