Sean McAllister of Portsmouth hit a hole-in-one at Sleepy Hole Golf Course on April 1, but he was not interested in any fanfare.

“To me, it’s not a big deal,” he said.

And there was a simple reason for his particularly low-key approach to his first ace.

“I completely mishit the ball,” he said.

He had been aiming for a different part of the green on the par-3 No. 16 hole. He used a 6-iron to cover the 149 yards to the hole.

“When I first saw it, OK, I was smiling,” McAllister admitted, but that was the extent of his celebration.

He was playing a round of 18 that Wednesday, and though, earlier this week, he was having trouble remembering his score from that day, he said the ace “didn’t help my game, I’ll put it that way.”

J.T. Belcher, director of golf operations at Sleepy Hole, was not surprised by the ace happening on No. 16.

“Obviously, a hole-in-one is not too common, but it is a hole that you can make a hole-in-one on,” he said.

Belcher estimated there are five to 10 aces a year at Sleepy Hole.

McAllister has been playing golf for only nine years, but his hole-in-one represented something his father-in-law, a long-time veteran of the game, is still looking to do.

Jokingly giving his father-in-law advice on how to reach the hole in a single swing, McAllister said he told him to do like he does — “Aim away from it.”