What are the odds?! Amateur golfers achieve ‘impossible’ hole-in-one feat in club comp

The chances of an amateur hitting a hole-in-one is 12,500-to-one, with a whopping 90% of players going their entire lives without ever getting that elusive ace.

So imagine the scenes at Meyrick Park in Bournemouth last week when the unthinkable happened at their Senior Club Championship, where four of the 40-strong field recording holes-in-one across the two rounds.

And even more remarkably, two of those came from the same player.

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First up was former professional boxer Austin Okoye – on Meyrick Park’s first hole, no less. What’s more, not a single hole-in-one had been registered on the 220-yard opener since club records began in 2006.

But 65-year-old Okoye, now a karate instructor, pulled off something special with his driver on what is known to be one of the toughest par-3s in the area.

“It’s just the most impossible hole, it’s just remarkable,” he said. “It’s one of those holes I always dreamed of doing it on but never thought it was possible. When it happened, it was a bit of shock.”

But the fun didn’t stop there. Moments later, 60-year-old Clive Wingfield landed an ace of his own up ahead on the 152-yard 12th with five-iron in hand, before Matt Dooley, a 75-year-old retired plumber, holed out on the 162-yard 10th hole.

Think that was the end of it? Think again. 

Two days later, when the field returned for the second round of the competition, lightning struck twice for Clive when the property dealer once again holed out at the 12th hole, with the same club.

It is thought that a golfer having two holes-in-one in the same round would create odds of 67-million-to-one, so we’ll let you do the maths on it happening for a second time on the same hole with the same club in the same competition.

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Queue the utter disbelief in the 19th.

“The members were shocked and questioning what the odds were of this happening, because the club normally only averages around three holes-in-one each year, let alone the same competition,” Greg Asher, Meyrick Park’s manager, said.

When news travelled back to England Golf, the governing body’s championships director James Crampton added: “To have four holes-in-one in a single competition is staggering and for someone to also shoot a hole-in-one in each of their rounds in the same competition is unheard of.”