Story, photo courtesy of Epson Tour.
HARRIS---Megan Schofill recorded her first career Epson Tour hole-in-one Friday to jumpstart an 8-under 64 in the opening round of the Island Resort Championship presented by Delta County Chamber.
The 25-year-old aced the 154-yard, par-3 12th hole at Sweetgrass Golf Club with a 7-iron. It marked the sixth hole-in-one of her life but doing it on a professional stage brought a unique thrill.
"I’ve hit a lot of good approach shots and all of them don’t go in, you know? So, when you make one, you kind of are just like, okay, like kind of a fluke," Schofill said. "I hit a really nice golf shot, but if I hit that same shot nine other times, I don’t know if it goes in. I mean, there’s a lot of great players that have never made one... It’s just fun, honestly. It’s fun to do it in a competitive round because that’s really hard to do."
Schofill started her round on the 10th hole and put together a blistering opening stretch, going birdie, birdie, ace, birdie to quickly reach 5-under through just four holes.
She opened with a 15-to-20-foot birdie putt on her first hole before chipping up to six feet to secure another birdie on the next. Then came her spectacular shot on the 12th.
"It landed probably like three feet short and one-hopped in," Schofill said. "Very exciting. A little bit of pressure going to that next hole just because you made a hole-in-one, trying to like refocus, really stay in the moment."
The refocus worked. Schofill birdied the par-5 18th hole to make the turn in 30. She kept her scorecard clean on her second nine, adding two more birdies on the par-4 first hole and the par-5 sixth hole to finalize her 64.
"Honestly, played really solid golf," Schofill said. "I felt like last week too, I played solid golf, just didn’t score. So, it was kind of nice today to put together a solid round. I felt I didn’t do that much different than last week. Just made some putts and kind of had it going."
Schofill credited her course management and steady hand on the greens for keeping momentum on her side.
"Only had one five on a par-5. I think my longest putt for par was like four feet. So really had some nice lag putts," Schofill said. "I didn’t hit everything close, but just really managed my game, wasn’t trying to make birdie on every hole—just when the opportunity came, just felt like I capitalized on it."
