By David Benoit
Special to the Reporter

The green at the eleventh hole sat 165 yards away when John Meaney approached it on July 24 during the Daniel Reddish Golf Tournament. He reached into his bag and withdrew a Callaway five-wood, put the ball on a tee, and swung. It was a pretty good swing.

"My wood makes a distinct sound when I hit it right, and I heard that ping. It bounced on the front of the green and went in." Meaney started his celebration. "I immediately went off, there were some women there from the Make-A-Wish and I picked them up in the air."

The celebration would have been appropriate for most amateur social golfers, especially one that calls himself a "hacker." But the Crockett Avenue resident wasn't just celebrating his hole-in-one, he was celebrating a brand new car.

The 11th hole that day just happened to be sponsored by South Shore Buick, who had donated a brand new Buick Lucerne to the tournament. The rights to the car now belonged to Meaney, and he knew it.

This story really gets interesting, though, in why Meaney was playing the South Shore Country Club that day in the first place. He was there to remember and honor a good friend of his, Danny Reddish, who died last year of a heart attack, and who, it just so happens, also once connected for a hole-in-one at the South Shore Country Club. Both struggled with alcoholism and Meaney worked hard with Reddish to try and help him beat the disease that ultimately contributed to his death. "Danny was a great guy, but he did struggle with alcoholism, and I spent a lot of time with Danny trying to help him," said Meaney. "He was a great person, very smart, very intelligent."

Meaney believes that maybe this lucky strike was Reddish looking down on him.

"It's kind of eerie, but it was almost like Danny guiding the ball," he says. "Like his way of saying thank-you."

Whatever got that ball to bounce into the cup gave Meaney an easier time of getting a new car than he and his wife anticipated. They had recently decided to end the lease on his Porsche and were going to start looking for a new sport utility vehicle. The swing saved him some time.

When he talked to the dealer, he decided he would upgrade from the Lucerne to a Rainier, the sports utility vehicle (SUV) model. When he picked up his car last Monday, he wound up with a supped-up red SUV, complete with XM Satellite Radio, a GPS navigation system, and leather seats. "I love it and I'm smiling every day," he laughed.

The car isn't the only thing that has changed in his life since the hole-in-one. He's been getting congratulations all over the place. From the moment he picked the ball out of the tin, he says, people have been passing the word around. Everyone in the City's Environmental Services and Inspectional Services Department, where Meaney is the principal health inspector, has been asking him about it.

"Everywhere you go, people are excited about it," Meaney said. "We all see the prizes at these tournaments, but no one knows anyone that actually wins them."

Meaney has even found some alterations in his own actions, venturing out into activities he never used to participate in.

"I'm not a gambler but I found myself playing the lottery recently, trying to see if I have one more in me."

And as for the tournament itself, Meaney and his foursome finished about 14 strokes back, but that didn't dull his excitement.

"I found I couldn't even golf afterwards," he explained. "It didn't matter, nothing mattered after that."