‘Mike shot the plane down!’ Famous Fresno golf shot contains 50-year-old mystery | Opinion
For 50 years, the most famous golf shot ever struck in Fresno has been accompanied by an enduring mystery.
Was Mike Bakula aiming for the low-flying plane when he drove from the 13th tee at Fort Washington Country Club on the afternoon of Oct. 11, 1974?
Or was one of the strangest incidents in the history of aviation – the only recorded instance of a golf ball downing an airplane – a freak and total accident?
One of Fresno’s top amateur golfers for more than two decades as well as a renowned jokester, Bakula is no longer around to retell his account. He died in 2019 at age 68 from a massive heart attack.
While Bakula was alive, he always maintained the shot was an accident.
“I was not trying to hit (the plane, it) just banked at the wrong angle at the same time I hit the ball,” Bakula said in a 1999 interview.
Even though witnesses backed up Bakula’s assertion, then and to this day, others have doubts.
“Bakula took the secret to the grave, but if I was a betting man I’d say 90-10 this was a ‘Watch this!’ moment,” said Kurt Smith, a Fort Washington member who authored a book commemorating the club’s 100-year anniversary. “The guy was a prankster who loved this kind of stuff.”
Over the decades, Bakula’s shot and the circumstances surrounding it have faded into myth. (For example, the original story that appeared on The Bee’s front page on Oct. 15, 1974 – and used as source material by international wire services – reported Bakula swung from the 12th tee. Bakula always insisted it was the 13th.)
However, several facts are not in dispute.
Golf ball ‘dazes’ pilot
On the same day that Fort Washington hosted a members tournament, a veteran pilot hired by the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District was spraying the course. (This does not make a ton of sense, then or now.) His name was David Hughes.
Hughes’ single-engine biplane had already made several passes by the time Bakula and his group arrived at the par-4 13th. A 1-handicapper known for his high draw, the 24-year-old launched his drive at the exact moment Hughes’ plane soared above the fairway. The ball somehow went through the propeller, smashed through the windshield, struck Hughes’ headset just above the temple and shattered a side window.
Hughes told Bee reporter Howard Miller the blow “left him dazed for a minute.” The pilot said he instinctively pulled up on the stick to avoid crashing and circled a few times to clear his head before landing in an adjacent vineyard.
A doctor later dug out eight shards of the shattered windshield out of Hughes’ face.
“Two inches to the right, and I would have been dead,” said Hughes, a Selma resident who lived until 2014. “That ball would have hit me right between the eyes.”
Once on the ground, Hughes hitched a ride to the clubhouse and angrily described what had occurred to club pro Bob Silva and others.
Meanwhile, Bakula and his playing partners remained on the course laughing and speculating over what happened. (They knew the plane had been hit but not the pilot.) Bakula couldn’t find his ball and had to take a 2-stroke penalty, but the foursome did find Plexiglass all over the fairway.
While that was going on and fresh from hearing Hughes’ side of the story, Silva exited the pro shop and briskly walked toward the group.
“OK, Bakula, what did you do now?” Silva asked.
Fresno golfer ‘a real jokester’
In 1974 Bakula was one of Fresno’s top golfers. He won the Fresno Amateur in 1971, beating former Bulldogs coach Mike Watney by two strokes, and had a short stint as a professional.
The McLane High School graduate is described by friends as a big guy (he stood 6-foot-2) with an equally large, fun-loving personality. One of the enduring stories told by family and friends is how Bakula shot 62 as a 19-year-old at Palm Lakes Golf Course (now gone) while playing barefoot.
“Mike was a real jokester,” said Dotson, a close friend and fellow Fort Washington member who was in a group a couple holes away when Bakula’s drive struck the airplane.
Dotson recalled fellow golfers giving Bakula “a hard time” and “BS-ing with him like, ‘Mike shot the plane down!’ ” However, he doesn’t believe Bakula took aim on purpose.
“In those days the course had so many trees you would’ve had a tough time seeing the plane coming,” Dotson said. “It just happened. The plane came in, and the ball happened to hit it. It was just a fluke thing.”
Bakula and Dotson accompanied each other on dozens of golfing and gambling trips from the time between Bakula’s infamous shot and his death, spending countless hours together in the car.
“He never once said to me, ‘I did it on purpose.’ Not once,” Dotson said. “In fact, in the last 25 years when we were together, it never even came up.”
Joseph Bakula, Mike’s oldest son, said he was “12 or 13” when his dad first told him the tale.
“I didn’t believe him,” Joseph Bakula said with a chuckle. “I didn’t believe my own father! I told him, ‘This is one of your jokes.’ He had to actually go get the newspaper clip from The Fresno Bee. Then I believed him.”
Mike Bakula and his playing partners (none of whom could be identified) always maintained that the plane suddenly came into view because it banked over some trees.
Hughes, by contrast, stated he was coming “right down the fairway” at 100 mph and roughly 75 feet off the ground after making multiple passes.
‘This act could be deliberate’
The Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District investigated the incident “with the thought in mind that this act could be deliberate,” according to minutes from its Oct. 21, 1974, board meeting.
“Contact has been made with the manager of the golf course, the golf pro, the individual hitting the ball and the people playing in his foursome,” the minutes read. “As of now it appears to be just an unfortunate act.”
Minds soon changed, because weeks later district management sent Bakula an itemized bill for $311.80 to cover repairing damage to the plane and replacing the broken headset.
Bakula refused to pay (“No way,” he said in 1999. “Everyone with me testified it was an accident.”) and for a few years the bill hung on the wall behind the clubhouse bar.
Still, not everyone is convinced. While researching for his book about Fort Washington’s centennial, Smith asked several old-timers if Bakula’s shot was accidental or on purpose.
“The response I’d get was nothing more than a smirk,” said Smith, a retired Fresno police officer.
“The plane was making these real regular loops,” Smith added. “That’s why I think Bakula recognized the pattern and with his great sense of humor said, ‘Hey, guys, look at this.’ ”
Like her brother and Dotson, Stephanie Bakula-Ribeiro doesn’t believe her father took aim at the plane from the tee box. But she can’t deny it’s quite the tale.
“People just love this story,” she said. “It’s totally crazy how much golfers love this story.”
About that, there can be no doubt.
