Frank Bensel Jr. You may have just accomplished a golfing feat.
USGA/Kathryn Riley
Go away, albatross. Professional golf may have an unusual new job.
According to the National Hole-in-One registry, any golfer's chance of making a hole-in-one is about 12,000 to one. That number drops to 5,000 to one when we're talking about a handicapper or club pro like Frank Bensel Jr., who is playing in the US Senior Open this week.
But the odds of what Bensel just did at Newport Country Club on Friday morning are much longer than that.
After opening his first US Senior Open with a 75 on Thursday, Bensel, a former champion at Winged Foot who now splits time between Purchase, New York's Century Country Club and Mirasol Country Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, started his second round with. two bogeys and a bogey before coming up on the first of Newport Country Club's back-to-back par-3s on the 4th and 5th.
Bensel played both holes in just two strokes.
That's right. He made back-to-back aces.
The National Hole-In-One Registry calculates the odds of making a two-in-one hole during the same cycle at 67 million to one. This has been done three times on the PGA Tour, most recently by Brian Harman in 2015. But making aces on back-to-back holes? While it may have happened in recreational golf, it has probably never happened in a professional tournament before, let alone a major championship.
It happened last year, before great championship when Seamus Power hit back-to-back aces on the 8th and 9th holes of the Augusta National Par-3 course during the annual Masters par-3 tournament. That has been done three times in this event.
The administrator at the National Hole-In-One Registry confirmed that they received the registration of consecutive aces, but they never played a tournament. They estimate the odds of getting consecutive holes-in-one in a tournament match at “more than a million to one.” That seems to be a safe assumption.
The registry does not list the odds of making back-to-back aces. Likewise, it is more likely to occur on back-to-back par-3s (although it is also possible on a course such as TPC Scottsdale with a short par-3 (16) followed by a par-4 (17)), which is rare in many areas. of golf, except for Cypress Point Club in California, Newport, and several notable courses in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
However, none of these courses regularly host major professional competitions. This is Newport's first major event since the 2006 US Women's Open while Cypress has been out of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am circuit since 1990.
Bensel is playing in his first major this week, but he is no stranger to the big tournament. The 56-year-old, who plays in Jupiter, Florida, has played in four majors, including the 2007 US Open at Oakmont and three PGA Championships, all coming in three different decades.
The only video of the aces came from the USGA's Twitter account, which posted a video of Bensel hitting his ball from the hole on the wind-swept green at Newport Country Club's par 5. Winds were 6-12 mph with gusts up to 18 mph Friday morning, making Bensel's performance even more impressive.
The conditions and the pure adrenaline of the moment clearly got to him after 5 as he bogeyed the next four holes to turn in a one-over 36 in his second round. That's five bogeys, two aces and just two pars.
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