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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

Andrew Magee has fulfilled some of his lifelong goals. He's made a living from playing golf. He's won four tournaments on the PGA TOUR.

Then again, his name is on a metal plaque affixed to a rock beside the 17th tee at the TPC of Scottsdale's Stadium Course:

2001 Phoenix Open
On January 25, during the first round, Andrew Magee recorded the first ever hole in one on a par 4 in PGA TOUR history.
332 yards

And that prompts a laugh from Magee: "Now my life is complete."

Andrew Magee will always be known for his ace on a par-4 at the 2001 FBR Open. (Feldman/WireImage)

Forgive Magee's chuckle. He's made nine aces and recorded those aforementioned victories. But all anyone seemingly wants to discuss is one of the flukiest shots of his life.

Scottsdale was the sixth TPC complex when it opened in 1986, the work of course designer Jay Moorish and protégé Tom Weiskopf. Unlike its predecessors, carved through dense stands of trees or across rolling terrain, this Stadium Course was set across an expanse of desert.

It called for flavors of course management foreign to players of that era.

There are the enormous gallery mounds accommodating daily crowds in the six figures.

There's the par-5 13th, essentially a double fairway curling around a large desert area.

But the 17th hole was the biggest puzzle for the touring professionals.

Back in 1986 most players could only reach that green in their dreams. Davis Love III was the driving distance leader in 1986 with 285.7-yard average. But the thin desert air and occasional need to make something happen tempted players to gun their drives close.

Moorish and Weiskopf were only too happy to sprinkle seven bunkers along the way, not to mention a lake lapping at the putting surface's left edge.

Magee lives in Paradise Valley, Ariz., a short car ride from the TPC, and figures he's played the track at least 100 times, including pickup rounds with friends. He's missed the cut only three times in Phoenix while placing second to Lee Janzen in 1993 and tying for fifth in a 1991 shootout won by Nolan Henke.

He was cruising during 2001's first round when he botched the 15th, "an easy par 5" with water along the fairway's left edge. One splash meant a double-bogey 7.

As Magee tells it, he was running hot when he hit an indifferent tee shot at the par-3 16th but drained his 40-footer for a birdie.

All better, right?

Nope. Magee still was perturbed at the 17th tee. By then players were regularly reaching the green so the protocol was to wait until the group ahead left for the 18th tee.

Magee had never ever reached the green and had hit into the water just once so he grabbed his driver and let 'er rip.

His drive miraculously bounced onto the green, rolled past a startled Steve Pate and Gary Nicklaus and caromed off the head of Tom Byrum's putter as he lined up a birdie try from inside 10 feet.

And went ker-plunk.

The cheer from the green sounded as if it was for an ace -- or maybe Byrum's birdie. Magee was uncertain. As word filtered back he'd found the hole off another player's club, Magee had a heart-pounding few moments as a TOUR rules official began driving his golf cart in their direction.

"He raised his arms in the 'touchdown' signal," Magee recalls. "Until then I didn't know if I'd done something bad or good."

Magee finished with a 66, two shots out of the lead (he tied for 44th). He accepted the congratulations, sat through interviews and took his place in the TOUR's record book.

But there's an aspect of this ace that goes unmentioned: Other pros saw short par-4s in a new light. Magee ranked 61st in driving distance that season at 282.9 yards, efficient but hardly brutish. If he could do it ...

"Absolutely," Magee says, believing everyone immediately adopted the give-it-a-go plan. "With the length of the ball nowadays going 300 yards everyone tries it. The scores are so low [on TOUR] that you have to try that strategy."

In fact, last year Magee hit over that green.

Magee now has a routine he follows when reaching the 17th, pointing out the rock and giving it a pat during friendly round.

"I've become a specialist, an expert on making 1s on par-4 holes" he says. "I could write books about it."

And laugh every time he tells the story.