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It goes without saying you need to know your way around the course if you’re going to make money caddying, but most golfers know knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate to success. However, it certainly didn’t hurt when it came to the case of one caddie in North Carolina who rose to the occasion after getting the chance to take a swing during a round he was working.
The PGA of America estimated the typical amateur golfer has a 1 in 12,500 chance of making a hole-in-one based simply on the frequency of what most people consider the sport’s ultimate achievement.
However, there are plenty of factors that can come into play. Skill level is the most obvious (the odds drop to 3,000-to-1 when it comes to people on the PGA Tour), and knowing how a course tends to play can certainly come in handy if you’re able to consistently get the ball to land near where you’re aiming.
According to Golf, Guy Mosley is intimately familiar with the layout of the Dormie Club, a course located just outside the mecca of Pinehurst in North Carolina, as a caddie who’s been on the bag for approximately 600 rounds on the property.
Some courses that offer (or require) caddies are stuffy tracks that refuse to let them get in on the action while they’re on the clock, but he told the outlet he has free rein to step up to the tee if someone he’s carrying for invites him to take a hack (a gesture commonly referred to as a “celebrity shot”).
Mosley caddied for the same group a couple of days in a row toward the end of June when one of those golfers asked him if he wanted to try his luck on the par-3 16th during their second round together—a 171-yard hole he estimated was playing closer to 168 due to the slight breeze coming back in their direction.
The 34-year-old (who boasts a 3.6 handicap) agreed to give it a try before borrowing an 8-iron from one of the players’ bags and firing a shot that landed on the green before making its way into the bottom of the cup (you’ll have to scroll over on Instagram to watch the video).
Mosley told Golf he had around an “80 to 20 percent failure-to-success rate” on the 100 celebrity shots he estimated he’d taken before that one, and that’s certainly one heck of a way to improve that ratio.