Finders keepers. Sam Cook and his prize ABS golf ball. To show our appreciation to Sam for sharing his story, ABS is sending him a dozen new ABS golf balls.
	Sam’s favorite ball is enshrined in plexiglass, retired from further play.

ABS stars on the golf links

Golfer shoots hole-in-one with ABS golf ball

A golfer with two career holes-in-one clearly has talent. But Sam Cook, a linksman from Nashville, Tennessee, who’s accomplished that feat, downplays his unique accomplishment.
   “I’m just a hacking dog,” he says with a chuckle.
   Sam hit his latest hole-in-one earlier this year in Scottsdale, Arizona at Eagle Mountain. He and seven buddies had flown to the Grand Canyon State for a golf holiday.

An ABS ball appears in the brush

On the 14th hole, Sam hit a drive off the fairway and lost his golf ball. While he was searching for it, he found another ball lying in scrub brush. The ball was emblazoned with an ABS logo and it looked in perfect condition.
   Sam scooped the ball up and plopped it in his golf bag along with his other new balls. He played out the hole with another ball and didn’t give his new-found ABS ball a second thought.

The fateful 5th hole

Sam and his group played the back nine first that day. As they approached the 5th hole, a par 3, Sam reached in his bag for a new ball. As fate would have it, he grabbed the ABS ball. He examined it again, didn’t find any flaws and placed it on the tee.
   Sam chose a 7-iron for his shot, took a few practice cuts, then swung and lifted the ball into the air. The ball arched straight and true, on a perfect trajectory toward the green.

Where did it go?

“I saw the ball hit the green and bounce,” Sam says. “From there it either landed behind the green or went in the cup.”
   When Sam and his two playing partners reached the green, they saw the ball lying in the cup. Sam let out a whoop that sounded clear across the Valley of the Sun.
   “I knew it was good when I hit it,” Sam says, “but I didn’t know it would be that good.”

Previous hole-in-one “a fluke”

Sam says he’s grateful for the ABS hole-in-one, because it was a skillful shot, while his first ace was pure luck. Back on Memorial Day 1998, he was playing his hometown Hillwood Country Club course in Nashville. Sam says that on the second tee, he hit a 6-iron shot that sliced right, caromed off a hill, ran back left “like a screaming rabbit,” hit the pin and dropped in.
   “That ball was going so fast it had blue flames shooting off it,” Sam recalls with a laugh.

Who originally owned the ABS ball?

At ABS, speculation surrounds one key question: “Who originally owned the ball that Sam Cook found?”
   ABS presents the golf balls as premiums to its customers and vendors. However, ABS employees are also known to use the golf balls during their leisure time.
   Dave Wallner, ABS general manager, discounts the notion that an ABS customer or vendor could have hit the golf ball into the Arizona brush. “Knowing the number of hack golfers in our company, it must have been one of our own who lost the ball,” Wallner surmises.