Whitinsville Golf Club will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, and it’s believed no one carded a double eagle on the Donald Ross design until Nick Tedeschi did last month on the par-5, 501-yard first hole.
During a NEPGA Pro-Am on June 10, Tedeschi, co-head pro at Granite Links Golf Club in Quincy, drove into a swale before the bunker on the left side of the fairway, and then hit a 4 iron from 196 yards into the cup for a double eagle, also called an albatross.
Tedeschi didn’t see the ball drop into the cup, but one of his playing partners thought it might have.
“When I realized the ball was in the hole,” he said, “the whole group screamed, and high fives and half hugs were given all around.”
Tedeschi never had a double eagle or a hole-in-one before this double eagle. He came close to getting both when his tee shot went in and out of the cup on a par 4 nearly 15 years ago.
The first hole is the only par 5 at Whitinsville, and longtime members don’t recall anyone carding a double eagle on it. The club displays hole-in-one plaques in the clubhouse, and none of them list an ace on a par-4 hole, which would be a double eagle. So Tedeschi’s double eagle is more than likely the first at the club on any hole.
“That’s amazing,” he said, “and I feel honored and excited to be the first person to record an albatross on such an amazing golf course.”
It was Tedeschi’s ninth hole of the day because his group started on the second hole in a shotgun start.
Bill DiCillo, 94, has been a member at Whitinsville GC for 63 years, and he said he had never heard of anyone carding a double eagle on the first hole before Tedeschi did it.
“That’s quite a shot,” he said. “He must be quite a golfer.”
DiCillo said he played Whitinsville five times last year, and he hopes to tee off at some point this year after undergoing cataract surgery in both eyes. The club gave him an honorary membership for his service to the club. He still has the plaque in a bookcase in his living room for his hole-in-one on the 172-yard, par-3 seventh hole with a 4 iron on Sept. 1, 1989.
Bill DeJong has been a member for more than 50 years, and he remembers someone once reaching the first green in two shots. He was standing on the green, and the ball rolled through his legs. It was hit by Phil Vandersea, who played for the 1966 Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions. Vandersea’s second shot didn’t roll into the cup, though.
“I think it’s incredible,” Whitinsville GC assistant pro Scott Moody said of the double eagle. “I just wish it was myself, and I’m 100 percent sure that that skin held.”
Tedeschi’s Granite Links team tied for sixth at 4 under par, eight shots behind the co-champions from Ipswich CC and Kirkbrae CC.
Moody said he’s aware of golfers driving the green and carding eagles on the 318-yard, par-4 eighth hole, but not scoring double eagles.
Longtime T&G sportswriter Bill Ballou has been a member at Whitinsville since 1982, and this is the first double eagle he has heard of on No. 1. Thanks to Ballou for helping out with this story.
Whitinsville is a 1925 Donald Ross design, a nine-hole course that plays to a par 35.
Double eagles are less common than holes-in-one. According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, the odds of a PGA Tour golfer making a hole-in-one are 3,000 to 1, and the odds of an average amateur golfer are 12,000 to 1.
—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @BillDoyle15.
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