Pike peaks with aces on two holes
April 23, 2014
Gordon McIntyre (The Province)
Photo by: Arlene Redekop (The Province)
He’s no Kim Jong-il, but what Ed Pike did on Monday afternoonis still amazing.
The 48-year-old forklift operator hit two holes-in-one in the same round Monday at Country Meadows in Richmond.
Golf Digest once put the odds of an amateur doing that at 67 million to one, although in a later survey that dropped to 9.2 million to one. The U.S. National Hole In One Association, whose figures are used by insurers for hole-inone contests, say it’s 1.3 million to one. Whatever the odds, they’re astronomical.
“It was surreal, I wasn’t believing my eyes,” said Pike of Richmond. “I’m still all butterflies.”
Pike, who recorded a hole-inone 30 years ago at a Richmond pitch-and-putt, used a No. 3 hybrid on the 154-yard fifth hole at Country Meadows, his course of choice for the past 20 years.
His drive was straight to the green, and when his ball blinked out of view he originally thought it had rolled into a dip behind the pin.
Then on No. 15, his foursome placed bets on who would be closest to the pin with their drives and Pike was first up. He swung his club, the ball sailed up, then arced down, bounced, rolled and fell straight into the cup.
“It was phenomenal,” said Dale Ware, one of Pike’s foursome. “I’ve witnessed half-a-dozen in my 30 years of golf, but I’ve never seen two in one game.”
That’s because it happens in B.C. maybe once every two years, said Kris Jonasson, executive director of the B.C. Golf Association. The fact Country Meadows is an executive course (four par4s, 14 par-3s), Jonasson added, doesn’t diminish Pike’s feat.
“Golf is golf, you swing a club, put the ball in a four-inch hole from a significant distance on one shot,” he said. “I think it’s amazing.”
Pike followed all the golf traditions of sinking an ace (or two). For one, you never again use the ball you got a hole-in-one with; Pike immediately put the sacred balls in his pocket.You mount those balls, and Pike got little trophies from the pro shop to do just that.
And it’s your shout at the 19th hole.
“I bought the round after,” Pike said. “But I said, ‘If I get one ace, yes, I buy the round, but if I get two, shouldn’t you guys be buying?’ “We’re still debating that.”
The foursome — which also included Manfred Stengel and Jeff Dale — signed the scorecard. Stengel and Dale witnessed the two aces from the tees, while Ware was the first on the scene at both holes to confirm the balls were in the cups.
Golf Digest also had this to say about the odds of acing a hole: If you have a low handicap and you play 5,000 rounds of golf in your life, the odds are 1:1 that you’ll get a hole-in-one.
Kim Jong-il, by the way, only played one round of golf in his life, but according to North Korean state media the late dictator aced 11 of 18 holes. The odds that that’s a lie, it can safely be said, are also 1:1.
See the story here: http://www.theprovince.com/news/holes+same+round+golf+Richmond+butterflies/9764487/story.html