Though certainly extremely rare, this link says that both have happened.
According to this link, just one HIO has been registered on a par-4 hole during a PGA event; circumstances were unusual.
I think you could still remove those as statistical anomalies (?) Someone help me out here.
I think the issue is whether ALL HIOs amount to statistical anomolies, and the answer I’m seeing is “no”. Removing a couple of REALLY rare ones doesn’t change that.
So, if anyone other than a regular golf player gets one, it is totally luck? I’ll go with that.
I still wouldn’t say total luck. The casual player has still selected a club for the right distance. Still taken a stance that gets to the hole. More luck than skill, certainly, but not totally luck.
The very first time I went golfing (it was a par 3 course near Hallandale, Florida–I was 12 or 13 years old) my little brother (who must’ve been 10 or 11, and who had golfed a few times before) hit a hole in one. To show you how little we knew about the game, I had hit my tee shot and then chased the ball down, and my brother waited for me to signal him (from the green) that I was done and now it was his turn to tee off. He did and it went right into the hole.
I remarked what a good shot he’d made, and he said “It’s what I was aiming for, wasn’t it?”
When he got back to the clubhouse, or wherever we returned our rental clubs, we told someone he’d hit a hole-in-one on the twelfth hole (or whatever) and no one believed us. (It turned out that hitting a hole-in-one was a big deal, that they would put his name on the wall if it were true, or he’d win something, maybe money–I forget). The more people who gave us “Nice story, boys, now get the hell out of here with that crap,” the more heatedly we insisted that we were telling the truth.
I’m not sure anyone ever believed us, to this day. Possibly including the Dopers who will read this message.
But it’s true, and he and I know that it’s true. Sometimes that just has to suffice, I guess. It does sound pretty hard to buy, I admit.
No, unless done by a complete neophyte a HIO is not total luck, but there is a HUGE element of luck for any golfer at any skill level. Getting the ball to stop within a smaller and smaller diameter around the hole involves skill. So yeah, if you have the skill to make your ball stop within a 10-yard circle, you have a better chance of having one drop than if you are liable to end up 100 yards wide of the green in any location. But getting it to come to rest in the bottom of a tiny hole with a stick in it is greatly dependent on luck.
In 30+ years of pretty heavy golfing I have several eagles and several tap-in birds on 3-pars, but no HIOs. And of all my playing partners - generally of decent ability - I’ve only seen one, and that was last year.
I’ve seen one. The ball almost hit me.
Our group was playing ahead of a threesome that had 2 adults and an 8 or 9 yr old child. For most of the round, once we had cleared 150 or so yds up the fairway, they would let the kid tee off, because he rarely hit it more than 50 yds.
I was just about to putt on a 130 yd downhill par 3 over a gully creek when I heard the ball bounce off a rock. I turned to see the secound bounce landing inches from me near the fringe, and roll down the green and juuuuuuust trickle in the cup with it’s last roll.
We looked back to see the kid on the teebox and the adults dancing around like the won the lottery. They cheered. We cheered. I then four putted for a dbl bogey.
I bought the kid a Coke at the next hole. He really didn’t think it was a big deal.
I heard him ask his dad how many aces he had made golfing.
The dad had replied, “Um, none”…
Kid: “Then why do you keep playing?”
.
It’s luck once they’ve hit it then? I see what you mean though.
Well, variables to hitting the ball:
There is the ball - controllable by the player.
Club selection - controllable by the player
Swing - this is the tough part to control and what golfers spend their lives learning to do - even pros don’t have a perfect swing every time - but they are close. A casual golfer is going to have a LOT of variation in their swing.
Things you don’t really control at all:
Wind - you can adjust for wind, but if the breeze comes and goes when your ball is mid flight - which it always does - your ball is going to land a little different.
Surface of the green - if your ball is rolling towards the hole and there is a little bump in the green - maybe someone repaired a ball mark earlier - is the ball going to go straight - you can plan for that.
The first two everyone but my eight year old can control (and there are eight year olds who are better informed than mine who control that). The third is what separates pro from scratch from “I play par 3 exec courses.” The forth you can adjust a little for with a LOT of experience, but you’ll never really control. The last is one of those things that tends to be bad on public courses, better on private expensive greens - so while no one controls it - when you pay $100+ for a round, your ball often rolls a little straighter.
Well, from what little I’ve heard Tiger Woods say, none of these things really cause him real problems. The only thing that makes him miss is when he screws up.
I believe that, coming from a real pro.
Once, early in his pro carreer, someone asked him about the wind (it was a very windy day). He said (I’m paraphrasing here) that if the wind could make him by as much as 20ft, he’d aim for the middle and accept the possible 10ft miss either way. I guess that’s what most of them do.
And that sums up why pros don’t get a lot of holes in one - but they are more likely to get them than you or I are. They accept a ten foot miss either way - You are probably a better golfer than I am, but I’m delighted when my drive leaves the tee box and misses the trees or the pond.
What’s a tee box?
The term is also used for the precise area where a ball must be placed before the tee shot is made. Its front boundary is defined by the tee markers; it extends back from this by two clublengths.
Perhaps the most common rules violation in casual play comes when players tee their ball - a great many will put the ball just in front of the tee markers. (They probably think the purpose of the tee markers is to say “Somewhere near here.”)
I remember meeting a good golfer one time. He wasn’t good enough for the pro tour, or even qualifying school, but he wasn’t far off. Anyway, he said that he never aimed for the flag–rather, he aimed for the green. He had never got a hole-in-one, but he had come damn close a few times. This leads me to believe that the skill lies in club selection, swing, understanding wind direction and speed, and other things that you can control to get the ball on the green. After that, it’s luck as to whether the ball bounces/rolls towards the hole with enough speed and accuracy to get in there, and without hitting an obstacle along the way (leaf, twig, ball mark, etc.).
I did see an actual hole-in-one once. Back in the late 70s, I was in the gallery at a pro tournament, and saw Tom Purtzer ace a par-3. The gallery exploded in applause and I believe Purtzer won a special prize for his achievement. It was quite somethng to see.
A couple more things to sorta point out the “luck” element of a HIO.
Think in terms of geometry. You are talking about getting a 1.68" ball to drop into a 4.25" hole at least 100 yards away. Most par 3s will play somewhere between 125-225 yards. Moreover, there is a stick in the middle of the hole, so there is really less than a 2" gap into which you are trying to fit the 1/68" ball. If the shot is the least bit too hard, it will strike the stick and bounce away instead of dropping. Moreover, if your angle of flight is only a fraction of a degree off, you are going to end up feet or yards to the left or right after travelling 100+ yards.
Here’s another one. Even on the most perfectly maintained green, a certain number of perfectly struck putts will miss. I forget the exact numbers, but I recall it being something like at least 1 out of 10 10’ putts struck with identical force and direction by a robot. That is because no grass surface can ever be perfect. The ball will move slightly as it encounters blades of grass, pieces of dirt/sand, whatever. Not to mention - as was mentioned above, spike marks, foot depressions, repaired ball marks, etc.
In the book where I read about this they said the easiest way to raise pros’ scores would be to slow down the greens, because the slower the green - the greater the number of imperfections that would take even a perfectly struck putt off line.
But if even a perfectly struck 10’ putt has no guarantee of dropping, certainly there has to be a considerably greater element of luck in a 150 yard shot dropping.
In hitting to the green, the main goal is to end up on the green as close as possible to the hole - on the side of the hole that will leave you the easiest putt. Generally you want to leave yourself an uphill putt with the least amount of break (curve). Although many golfers talk about taking “dead aim”, I would be very surprised if anyone were able to uncover a quote where a golfer said he/she actually was trying to hole out their tee shots.
I believe you. Sheer dumb luck lets people who are normally happy to even hit the ball straight (or hit it at all) get holes in one every once in a while. My ex-wife’s grandmother got one on her very first round of golf. After that freakish occurrence, though, she didn’t turn out to be remarkable, or even good, at the game in any way, and quickly gave it up.
I think you mean 1.68".
It’s widely believed that the presence of the flagstick increases the chance of the ball going in the hole. A fast-rolling shot may bounce away, but it would have zipped right by the hole had the flagstick not been present.
Certainly, greens aren’t perfect. But unless the imperfections are somehow arranged to consistently deflect balls away from the hole, they will only affect which tee shots roll into the hole, not the overall probability of that happening.
It would be silly to argue that luck is unimportant. But if my skill allows me to put 90% of my tee shots within a 50-yard circle, whereas for you it’s 10 yards, it’s easy to say which of us has the better chance of a hole-in-one. And should you make one, your greater skill has to be considered an important factor.
I’d guess that at an event that includes a $50k hole-in-one competition you could obtain such a quote.