Folks should have been buying beverages for Richard Keene at Lookout Mountain Golf Club during the second round of the Tennessee Senior Amateur.
He celebrated his 58th birthday Thursday.
But he ended up having multiple drinks put on his tab. Keene scored a hole-in-one on No. 13 from 208 yards out with a 5 iron.
Richard Keene reacts to a missed putt as he plays in the John T. Lupton Memorial golf tournament at the Honors Courts in Ooltewah on Sunday, May 24, 2015, near Chattanooga.
Neil Spitalny hits a tee shot in this 2012 file photo.“I flushed the shot dead at it,” Keene said before scooting down the mountain to pick up his elementary-aged daughter. “It hit probably eight feet in front of the hole and rolled in.”
It was Keene’s fourth ace – he thinks.
The shot represented the high of Keene’s roller-coaster day that ended with him tied for the lead with fellow Chattanoogan Neil Spitalny. Each of them has shot a 1-over-par 141 through the first two days of the three-day tournament.
Buzz Fly of Memphis and Mike Freels of Chuckey are two shots back. John Thomas of Knoxville is three off the lead. Defending champion Danny Green from Jackson and Signal Mountain resident Tom Baird are four behind the leaders.
“It’s good for Chattanooga golf to have two local guys in the lead,” Spitalny said. “It also shows that home-course knowledge is important here at Lookout Mountain.”
Mike Nixon of Nashville opened an 11-shot lead over Jim Brown of Loudon in the super-senior championship by shooting a 3-under 67. Chattanooga’s Ronnie Law is tied for sixth but 17 strokes off the lead.
Keene shot a 1-under 69 on Thursday after starting with a double-bogey on No. 1 because he putted four times. He had other quirky outcomes on several other holes through the day.
“I think my game is bipolar,” Keene said. “I four-putt the first green. I top it on No. 11 maybe 150 yards, then still make a bogey. Then I make a one, an ace.
“I’ve got issues. I can hit a foul ball with the best of them.”
Spitalny, fresh off a fourth-place finish at the British Senior Amateur, kept his ball in play Thursday. He scored better in the first round but said he played better in the second round, about 72 hours after returning from Europe.
“It was generally stress-free, whereas yesterday was a struggle,” Spitalny said. “Today I had a few more chances for birdie but didn’t capitalize. I had no real trouble.”
Freels, who won this event in 2013, had a highlight that came close to Keene’s ace. Freels sank a birdie putt on the par-3 16th hole from across the green to a back left hole location and played at least 12 feet of break.
He asked Thomas to replace his poker-chip ball mark with something smaller because he had to play so much break. Freels struck the putt and watched it drop. He got high-fives for sinking a putt that would have been 60 feet in a straight line but was more like 80 feet with the break.
“Where I was aiming was so far away from the hole that it was scary to me,” Freels said. “But knowing the course a bit after a day or two, I knew it was going to break that much.”
Spitalny witnessed the shot and gave Freels a fist-bump.
Spitalny and Keene still lead by two.
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.