NATCHEZ —The last place golfer Jeanie Peabody thought to look for her ball was the hole.

“I hit it to the left of the pin, I saw it go up and then I thought it went right,” the 85-year-old golfer said about her hole-in-one shot on the ninth green Friday at the Duncan Park Golf Course.

“I went up there and couldn’t find it,” Peabody said.

Peabody was playing her occasional golf game with her husband Andy. She hit the ball from the ladies’ tee with her 6-iron.

“We looked and looked,” she said. “After that I said, ‘Forget it.’”

Certain that her ball was lost in the woods, Peabody went to retrieve the flag for her husband’s putt and was surprised.

“There it was nestled in the bottom of the cup,” Peabody said. “I said, ‘Here it is. Here it is.’”

Her reaction caught the attention of local golfers Pete and Judy Powell, who were hitting balls from the nearby practice tee.

“They were nice to come congratulate me,” Peabody said.

The hole-in-one was a first for Peabody who started playing golf when she was 8 years old. She took a hiatus from golf to coach and play tennis, the sport for which she is known in Natchez. All in all she has been playing golf for approximately 75 years, she said.

It is not the first hole-in-one for the couple, though. Andy Peabody accomplished the once-in-a-lifetime shot four or five years ago, Peabody said.

As exciting as the shot was Friday, Jeanie Peabody said a hole-in-one is mostly about luck.

“For me it is a fluke,” Peabody said. “A hole-in-two is a real golf shot. Once you get the ball on the green, that second shot has to be a real putt.”

“You have to have some skill to get that second one in,” she said.

Duncan Park Golf Course Superintendent Greg Brooking said the golf course sees about one hole-in-one each year.

“That is everyone’s aspiration to get the ball in the cup. But to get it there it has to be the perfect speed, and the perfect direction to go into that hole,” Brooking said. “We were excited for her.”

Like her golf game, Jeanie Peabody said she takes Friday’s feat in stride.

“I decided when I came back to golf after many years of tennis that I was just going to play for fun,” she said. “So Andy and I go out and we don’t keep score. No pressure, just enjoy the game.”

In a couple of weeks, when she tees off from the ninth green, Jeanie said the hole-in-one will not be on her mind.

“I am going to be thinking about that one ball in front of me,” she said. “I will be looking at that ball and thinking, ‘I hope you get up there.”