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Most golfers will go their entire lives without managing to get a hole-in-one. However, a high schooler in Ohio has managed to sink five of them in the span of two years while serving as the “celebrity golfer” at a local tournament where he’s been at the top of his game.
There are a ton of different factors that play a role in your ability to get a hole-in-one (talent tends to be one of the most important), and the PGA of America estimates the “average” golfer had a 1 in 12,500 chance of making one (a fairly unscientific stat that’s largely based on data concerning their documented frequency).
There are plenty of people who would tell you certain holes-in-one deserve an asterisk (i.e those that come on an executive or par-3 course), although I think golfers who have become intimately familiar with how hard the game is agrees anyone who’s able to put the ball in the cup with a single swing from any tee box deserves to get some credit.
I’d argue that includes people who are tapped to serve as the guest or celebrity shooter at charity golf tournaments that allow participants to fork over a donation for the right to play a ball that’s hit by someone who was tasked with posting up near a tee box thanks to their prowess on the course.
In 2023, Colin Bobowski, then a freshman at LaSalle High School in Cincinnati, was selected for that honor during a tournament that a VFW post organized at Aston Oaks Golf Club in Miami Heights and managed to get three-holes-in-one on the par-3 6th (which plays between 145 and 205 yards based on which member of the quartet of more difficult tee boxes you’re opting for).
He did benefit from hitting 60 shots from the same location over the course of the day, but it was still a wildly impressive showing that virtually anyone who plays golf on a regular basis would never be able to replicate.
However, the now 17-year-old Bobowski managed to come pretty close to doing exactly that when he returned for the same tournament this year, as he managed to notch two more aces by the time it wrapped up last week.
Must be nice.