7 x 1: Jamestown man has sunk seven holes-in-one
For a golfer that has recorded seven hole-in-ones in his lifetime, 85-year-old Jamestown man Floyd Day admits the first feat of its kind wasn’t much more than pure luck.
- Image
For a golfer that has recorded seven hole-in-ones in his lifetime, 85-year-old Jamestown man Floyd Day admits the first feat of its kind wasn’t much more than pure luck.
Day was in his early 20s when his older brother invited him out one afternoon for a round of golf on a course in Wichita, Kan., not far from where the siblings grew up in Concordia, Kan.
“It was my first time actually playing,” said Day, who grew up with a father that often played golf.
Day said he would pick up a club every now and then and hit some golf balls, but it wasn’t a sport he played himself until after his service in the U.S. Air Force.
“It was really kind of a fluke,” Day said about his first hole-in-one. “It was about a 130- or 140-yard hole. I hit the ball and topped it pretty good, so it rolled down past this ditch in front of the green. Sure enough it kept rolling and went right in the hole — I could hardly believe it.”
Despite such immediate success on the course, Day said it wasn’t until several years later that he started playing golf regularly and he only started doing so when he began a career managing country clubs throughout the Midwest.
“It was in my family growing up, but I was always a baseball guy. I didn’t originally care much for playing golf,” he said.
Upon playing golf more regularly in Kansas, Day said he recorded two holes-in-one at a home course in Concordia in addition to another hole-in-one during a golf tournament in eastern Kansas.
“I’ve since cleaned out a lot of my house and gotten rid of most of my trophies, plus as you get old, it’s a lot tougher to remember exactly when and where you did all of these things,” Day said with a laugh.
Day then came to Jamestown about 20 years ago to manage the Elks Club after retiring from a career in the country club and food services industries.
Since he arrived in Jamestown, Day has been a member at the Jamestown Country Club — a place where he continued to build on his success making holes-in-one.
“I’ve had three (holes-in-one) out there at the Country Club,” said Day, who, for the first time this year, did not renew his membership to the club.
“I was a scratch golfer and played most every day back when I was young, but now I’ve had to have my knee replaced and it’s not as easy to get out on the course anymore,” he said.
Day said his favorite part of his more than 50 years of golfing was playing with a group of four or five good friends.
“We played together until about three or four years ago. I really enjoyed playing with those guys and trying to beat them each time we went out there,” he said.
One of the regular members of that group was Ray Game, 88, of Jamestown, who said he used to play golf with Day about three times a week for a period of about 10 years.
“He was a good golfer,” Game said. “And it was great because all four or five guys were pretty much on the same level and played enough alike that we didn’t have to give each other strokes to keep the rounds competitive.”
Game said he was not fortunate enough to witness any of Day’s hole-in-ones, but said he has had the good fortune himself of recording several holes-in-one in his golf career as well.
Day said he sometimes misses being able to play the game he grew to eventually love, but still enjoys going out and hitting some golf balls on the fields near his home in Jamestown.
Sun reporter Brian Willhide can be reached at 701-952-8454 or by email at bwillhide@jamestownsun.com
More from around the web
RSS Feeds