Livonia — Two-time defending ladies champion Janina Jacobs was sad and eager as the annual Detroit News/Golf Association of Michigan hole-in-one contest kicked off
Monday at Whispering Willows Golf Club. She first participated in the annual contest 17 years ago, with brothers Chris and Patrick Parrott and her father, Caston Buck Parrott. Eleven contests later, Jacobs, who has three career aces, returned with fond memories. “The hole-in-one contest was very near and dear to him,” Jacobs said tearfully of her father, who passed away of heart disease July 26. Parrott, who hit his first hole-in-one in 1985 — a year to the day after his wife and Jacobs’ mother died and several years after both of his sons hit their first — taught her and her brothers to play golf when they were young. “His wish was for me to get one too, so the family could all come to the Detroit News hole-in-one contest,” Jacobs said. She got his wish — and hers too, at the women’s state amateur tournament in 1993.
“I was so excited to call him and say, ‘Hey, Pop, guess what’ ” she said, her face shining perhaps as much as it did then, in remembering the moment.