Club professional Frank Bensel Jr admitted it was “like an out-of-body experience” to make back-to-back holes-in-one during the second round of the US Senior Open.
Bensel amazingly followed an ace on the 184-yard fourth hole with another on the 203-yard fifth at Newport Country Club.
According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, the odds of carding two aces in the same round are 67 million to one. It does not provide odds for consecutive holes.
"The first one was great. I was kidding around, like now let's go for another one, and it happened to go in. Couldn't believe it."
Frank Bensel Jr. and his 14-year-old son Hagen (named after Walter Hagen!) discuss the incredible back-to-back aces. pic.twitter.com/SNRwbcUD0K
— USGA (@USGA) June 28, 2024
“I’ve played a lot of golf in my life and just to see a hole-in-one in a tournament is pretty rare,” Bensel said after following his consecutive aces with four straight bogeys and carding three more on the back nine in a round of 74.
“The first one was great, so that got me under par for the day. And then the second one, I just couldn’t believe it. To even think that that could happen was amazing.
“Hit the ball kind of in the right place and then it just started rolling. I was kidding around and I was like, ‘Okay, now let’s go for another one’, and it happened to go in. Everybody just couldn’t believe it. We all went nuts.
“I’ve got a lot of family and friends here and they were all going crazy, and the guys I played with, same thing, they couldn’t believe it. It was amazing.
“This will be remembered obviously forever and ever. After these two holes-in-one, I just didn’t even know… it was like an out-of-body experience. I was more excited than I wanted to be.”
It is thought that the only other instance of a player making consecutive holes-in-one during a tournament occurred in even more remarkable circumstances during the 1971 Martini International at Royal Norwich.
John Hudson followed a hole-in-one at the 195-yard 11th with another ace at the par-four 12th, which measured 314 yards.
Hudson went on to finish tied ninth and earned £160 from the tournament’s total prize fund of £7,000.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here