Sorry to do this to you, Tom IV (and aceless others), but ...
My first hole-in-one was a huge surprise, because I was playing so poorly that day. I was 8-over through 6 -- having pull-hooked my tee shot on the opener (nerves!), and having pull-hooked another driver into the gully on 3 (lost ball!), and having push-sliced my second on 6 ... right into the Pacific. The wind was blowing hard off the ocean when I got to 7. Little dinky downhill. Wedge, most days. What is it -- a hundred and seven yards? I pulled out a 6-iron, put it back in my stance, and hit a crisp little knockdown-fade that landed a few feet onto the green and rolled and rolled, curling-right all the way to the back-right hole. Must have fallen in on its last rotation. Pebble Beach No. 7 -- a great place for a man's first ace.
My second was kind of a fluke. Well, I suppose all holes-in-one are a little fluky -- but this one was flukier than most. I mean, really, who could imagine that a high, drawn 3-iron to the Redan (yes, THE Redan, at North Berwick), when it hits the flag, would drop straight down into the hole? And then, having dropped straight into the hole, that it would bounce out of the hole, up the slope, with just the right spin to take it back down into the hole! You could've knocked me down with a feather.
No. 3 is my favorite: Rick Shefchik and I were at Sand Hills, in September of '96, and finishing up our last round (of five, over two days) before hitting the road for the long drive home. We came to the magnificent 17th. (Bury my heart by the 17th tee!) I hadn't hit that green in four rounds. Hadn't made better than double-bogey, in fact; had spent more time than I cared to tromping around in the desert to the left of the green. The wind was howling -- and I mean HOWLING, like only a Nebraska wind can howl, right into our faces. We were playing the upper tee. (Are they still using that one?) I thought: Well, what the hell, I haven't hit the green yet -- so let's try something different. It was time for my favorite shot -- a knockdown-fade driver that never gets more than about 15 feet off the ground. Looks a lot like Tiger's "stinger," except that his draws and mine fades. Anyway: The wind was SO strong that day that even my knockdown driver ballooned up into it -- and came down, as Sam Snead put it, like a butterfly with sore feet. Two bounces, a little roll, and softly into the cup! Ace with a driver -- man, did that look good in the agate type on the Sports page.
My fourth, and final, hole-in-one was at a course that the Minnesotans and ex-Minnesotans among us (Shefchik, John Conley, Jeff McDowell, Shel, Larry Keltto) have likely played, but the rest of you have probably never heard of: Braemar Golf Course, a municipal course in Edina, Minnesota, where I played probably half of the rounds I played as a kid. This was many, many years after I was a kid; I was playing there on a crisp September morning, with my cousin Charlie. We were at the 3rd hole -- a hole utterly without architectural distinction. It's 166 yards from the back tee, flat from tee to green, no bunkers of any interest, with a large, mostly flat green that falls off on the back. It was slightly downwind that day; the pin was toward the back -- right by the cross-ridge that marks the front edge of a false rear. I grabbed my 8-iron and hit it hard -- right at the stick. It bounced near the front and rolled and rolled and disappeared from view. I figured it was nothing to be excited about: I'd hit it right at this pin before -- and had found it on the back fringe. My cousin said: "I think it's in!" I pooh-poohed the notion. He said: "No, I really think it's in the hole!" And he was right.
So there you have it: four aces -- and three on famous holes. A man couldn't ask for much more than that!
P.S. Well, OK, I don't have four aces.
I was bluffing.
I have one ace -- and three jokers.
The first three, of course, are pure (so to speak) fiction.
The fourth is the truth! I kid you not! When it ran in the agate type -- "Dan Kelly, Mpls., No. 3 at Braemar G.C., Edina, 166 yards, 8-iron" -- a colleague clipped it, photocopied it, and taped it on my office door, with the notation: "A long 8, but a great one." He got that right!