Any golfer will tell you: Making a hole-in-one is a dream that many pursue, and most will never accomplish.
Don’t tell them about Flen D. Mobley.
The 63-year-old from Miramar got his first ace in 2009.
And on Jan. 29 he did it again on The Senator Course at Don Shula’s Golf Course in Miami Lakes.
“The feeling is really great,” Mobley said. “It really is an accomplishment.”
The National Hole-in-One-Registry says for an average player, the odds of making an ace are 12,000 to 1.
“No matter the distance, that really is a challenge,” Mobley said. “There is some luck to it, too. I feel fortunate to be able to do that.”
Mobley lives in Miramar and owns VLF Management, a talent and entertainment management company.
After nearly three decades, he retired from the U.S. Army as a Sgt. 1st Class.
The veteran said he was a quartermaster, and his service included a tour during the Iraq war.
When Mobley returned home in 2004, he became more serious about his golf game.
His first hole-in-one, at the Country Club of Miami county course, happened June 9, 2009.
Mobley instantly recalled the date.
“I will never forget it,” Mobley said. “It’s an indelible marker. They don’t come along every day.”
Mobley said he normally shoots in the mid-to-high 80s.
On Jan. 29, while playing a round with his golf buddies Elvin Jimenez and Rubin Jimenez at Shula’s, he used a Calloway hybrid-5 iron on the third hole to hit his Callaway Superhot Bold Red ball 175 work at yards.
“Elvin said, ‘I think your ball went in,’ and his brother said, ‘No, I see it, it’s in the front,’ and I said, ‘OK, we’ll see it when we get there.”
As Mobley describes it, “Elvin sped up [his cart to get to the green], looked in the cup, looked at the sky and looked around at me and said, ‘Man, you got a hole-in-one!’”
It was the second ace at that hole at Shula’s that month.
Coconut Grove Attorney Robert Stamen made a hole-in-one on Jan. 14.
Like Stamen, the rest of Mobley’s round was not great after accomplishing that feat.
“I did awful on the back 9, because of the excitement and the guys kept talking about it,” Mobley said. “But it was still golf.”
Though Mobley’s only played The Senator Course about a half-dozen times, he has high praise for the Miami Lakes links.
“It’s a beautiful course, I really like the course,”
Mobley said.
He had to postpone buying his friends a round of drinks, the traditional way to celebrate a hole-in-one.
But despite restrictions from the pandemic, Mobley said about the golf course, “The environment is great, the employees are outstanding. Customer service is just great. I really like playing there.”
The Senator Course “could easily become another home course,” Mobley said. “The rates are reasonable for the level of course. The greens are nice, the facility is nice.”
Mobley has souvenirs of his great day there, as if he’ll ever forget.
There’s a certificate that commemorates his accomplishment at The Senator Course.
And that Callaway Superhot Bold Red ball, inscribed with the details from his latest hole-in-one, sits on a counter at home.
It’s next to the ball from the ace he made at Country Club 12 years ago.