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Ringler aces Carey Park par 4

   It’s good to be Hutchinson High’s Thane Ringler these days.
   The talented young golfer is enjoying his senior year and he’d won his first four golf tournaments of the spring prep season for the Salt Hawks.
   And then…he hit the shot.
   Ringler, 17, and three high school teammates, enjoying a half-day of school, were playing Thane Ringler

Hutchinson’s municipal Carey Park earlier this spring in a practice round. They reached the 320-yard, par-4 15th hole and each took their turn driving the green. Ringler pulled his 9.5 degree Titleist 905R from the bag and took his turn on the relatively open, straight forward par-4 hole.
   “It’s pretty wide open so you just take a rip at it. It was a little bit downwind, about 10 mph behind us, so that helped us a little bit,” the 2009 KJGA Match Play champion explained. “It’s a drivable hole, if you hit a good one and it’s a little downwind. I was looking to get it on the green or around the green. I pulled my driver and gave ‘er a good rip.”
   Ringler says his drive looked good the whole way, but the foursome feared the ball had gone over the green.
   “It felt good, and I hit it right where I wanted to so I just stopped watching it and picked up the tee,” he says. “I looked back and we all thought it bounced on the green and rolled over. We weren’t quite sure. It’s hard to tell from that far away. It felt like a good shot and I knew I’d hit it well, so we just thought it was maybe on the green or over.”
   But as the group reached the green, Ringler’s ball was nowhere to be found.
   “We get up on the green and we’re looking around for it…everyone else has found their ball,” Ringler remembers. “I could have sworn it was over, because everyone else was around the front of the green and I’m usually a few yards longer than them. So I was pretty sure it was over the green and I was wondering if it was OB or what?”
   Ringler says the group had been looking for a couple minutes when junior teammate Sam Leiker made a very interesting discovery.
   “Sam says ‘Well, maybe it’s in the hole?’” Ringler says. “I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ So he walks over there and looks in the hole and he’s like ‘Dude, it’s in here.’ And I was like ‘You’re kidding – no way!’ And he says “Seriously.’”
   Ringler says the group was awestruck by what had happened.
   “It really didn’t sink in for the rest of the round until the next day…it was kind of a crazy thing,” he admits. “I never expected to hit a hole in one on a par 4 before. I don’t think I’ll be Thane Ringler

able to top that one. I’d have to be pretty fortunate to do that.”
   Ringler says he didn’t even get a chance to buy drinks for his buddies after his double eagle.
   “I was going to, but we got so busy with the scorecards and everything,” he says. “I still owe them some drinks.”
   It was the young golfer’s first “official” ace. He had knocked a ball in the cup on a par 3 at Prairie Dunes once, but it wasn’t his tee ball…
   “About five years ago, we were out at Prairie Dunes playing and we were on the 15^th hole and I’d hit my shot on the green,” Ringler recalls. “My dad had gotten a new club; it was a new hybrid. So I wanted to try it out and I asked to borrow it. I dropped a second ball down and hit it in the hole. But it didn’t really count because it was my second ball…it was pretty frustrating.”
   While Ringler has been winning tourneys this spring his Hutch High teammates have been playing pretty well too. They took first as a team in two of the events he won and placed second in the other two.“It’s been a pretty good year so far,” the senior said modestly.
   Seeded sixth, Ringler won his first KGA title last summer at the Junior Match Play Championship at Cottonwood Hills near Hutchinson. After three match victories including one in 19 holes, he knocked off top-seeded and two-time state champion Michael Gellerman of Sterling 7 & 6 in the championship match.