HOLE-Y MOSES!
3 holes-in-one in just 5 hours
AN amateur golfer has achieved something even the professionals can only dream of – three holes-in-one in five hours.
Ali Gibb, nicknamed Ali-G, achieved the amazing feat while playing in a 36-hole charity tournament, which she easily won.
The chance of an average golfer scoring a single hole-in-one is 12,500 to one, while the odds on a professional achieving the feat is 2,500 to one – but mathematicians have struggled to work out the odds of hitting three in just 36 holes.
The odds on scoring three in five hours are incalculable, a Cambridge mathematician said, but are certainly in excess of 1.9 trillion to one.
Ali, 51, defied the odds while defending her club championship title at Croham Hurst Golf Club, in south London, and it was not the first time she has hit a hole-in-one.
She already has three under her belt – scoring two last year.
Ali, who has been playing golf for nearly 25 years and has a handicap of six, said: “It goes to show how special it is because I’ve saved the three balls.
Bizarre
“I scored my first hole-in-one in South Africa at the Atlantic Beach Golf Estate in March 2009, my second at Surrey National in June of the same year and my third at Croham Hurst in 2015.”
Now she has doubled her already rare achievement.
She said: “It was a very, very bizarre day. It was funny because people were walking by us and asking when I was going to hit another hole-in-one and Gill said, ‘Well, actually, she has...’
“It was such an extraordinary day. The club gives out a bottle of champagne for every hole-in-one, so they gave me three.
“We had a great night. It was just a weird, weird day.”
Ali went on to win the championship even after fluffing a few holes.
She said: “I had crazy scorecards with a nine and two eights in the mix to offset my three holes-in-one.”
After retiring three years ago, Ali is playing a lot more golf than she used to. She said: “I was working full time in the City up until three years ago so then I could only play at weekends.
“Now that I’m retired I play about three times a week. Golf has been in our family for generations. My mother scored a hole-in-one at St Andrews in the 1960s. So I guess it runs in the family.” Club secretary Jean Cooke said: “It’s gobsmacking and certainly unique. I’ve been looking it up and I believe it might be the first time it’s ever happened.
“There was a man in the US who scored three, but that was over the course of five days. The club championships is our biggest day of the year. I can’t remember anyone scoring even one hole-in-one in that competition.”