A hole-in-one for the (old) ages

Pete Buttross, on his 90th birthday.

Ted Williams, the great baseball slugger, once famously said: “By the time you know what to do, you’re too old to do it.”

Try telling that to Natchez golfer Pete Buttross, who took up golf at age 72 when his wife bought him a set of clubs upon his retirement.

One month after turning 93, Buttross made a hole-in-one, using a 5-wood to ace the difficult 132-yard seventh hole at Beau Pre Country Club. It was Buttross's third career hole-in-one, but, only his first since turning 93.

The seventh at Beau Pre is a challenging par-3 that requites a carry over a deep ravine. Buttross made his ace in tournament play on the second day of the Beau Pre Fall Four Ball.

The odds against a hole-in-one have been calculated at 3,500-to-one; however, no computer has calculated the odds on a 93-year-old accomplishing the feat. Might not be possible.

Buttross apparently is not the oldest golfer to ever make an ace. In April of 2007, a woman named Elsie McLean, 101 years young, used a driver to ace the 100-yard fourth hole at Bidwell Park Golf Couse in Chico, Cal.

It was McLean's first-ever hole-in-one — at 101 or any age.