"They heard us at the next tee ... Everybody wrapped their arms around me and danced."
The celebration continued in the clubhouse when, in keeping with golf custom, Mrs Cross used the Wanaka Golf Club's congratulatory $200 voucher to shout a round of drinks.
She has a special spot reserved for her latest hole-in-one badge - next to the other four she earned at least 40 years ago after scoring aces in Balclutha and Gore, three of them within 18 months of each other.
Her late husband Norman introduced her to the game when she was 35. In her golfing heyday, she held a handicap of seven and represented South Otago.
Until a couple of years ago, Mrs Cross had a handicap of about 22, but after her husband died it dropped to 30. She now shoots about 102.
"I don't concentrate as well now because I'm always thinking of him around the golf course."
She expected this would be her last year playing golf, although, "it depends how fit I keep".
Golf Digest puts the odds of an amateur golfer getting a hole in one at 1 in 12,500.
The oldest golfer known to have made a hole in one is 102-year-old Elsie McLean, in California in 2007.
The record for the most holes in one in a lifetime, 59, is reportedly held by Norman Manley, an amateur, of California.
