How Mars resident Dan Robinson completed a rare golf trifecta: ‘You could be making history’
Dan Robinson isn’t sure anyone shares with him the feat he recently achieved.
The Mars resident, formerly a Chrysler National Long Drive Champion and now a golf coach, has penciled down a double eagle on a par-5 and holes-in-one on a par-4 and a par-3, the latter of which he recently sank 12 years after the ace on the par-4.
“I don’t even know if (it’s been) accomplished out there,” said Robinson, 64. “Maybe one of the PGA guys. Maybe from the past? ... When I’d run into people, they’d just say, ‘That would be so cool.’”
Playing with a pupil of his at Fox Run Golf Course on July 25, he finally did it, using a 7-iron at 187 yards.
“I actually thought maybe it plugged,” Robinson said. “It’s downhill at a ways, and I knew it was tracking well to the hole. I go, ‘What happened? It just disappeared.’ She kinda jumped up and down. She goes, ‘I think it went in the hole!’ My first reaction was no. I go, ‘It’s low land, it’s kinda wet.’
“Sure enough, it was in the hole. It was jammed. It went in on the fly, you could tell.”
Robinson’s double eagle occurred at a course in Reston, Va., in 1986. He put away the par-4 hole-in-one at Aubrey’s Dubbs Dred Golf Course in Butler Township in 2014. He nearly got his par-3 ace in Myrtle Beach on a windy day two years ago. He admitted he had his doubts he’d ever track it down.
“The ironic thing is, when you get slowed up ... you’re dragging around the course and everybody will ask, ‘Hey, have you ever had a hole-in-one?’” Robinson said. “And I’d go, ‘Not on a par-3.’”
Robinson would tell them about his other two exploits, to which he would regularly hear, “You could be making history if you hole this.”
He described his feeling as relief. Now he can just go play.
“Let’s face it,” Robinson said. “I’m not trying to hit it in the hole. I’m trying to get it close. I’m trying to go low. Being a coach — and I competed — I’m trying to score.”
