What are the odds of making golf’s ultimate shot?

Published 9:00 pm Monday, December 8, 2003

CAMANO ISLAND — It is one thing to defy the golf gods, but quite another to trample jubilantly on golf’s odds.

Retired Camano Island real estate investors Ron and Meg Lodolce did precisely that when each made a hole-in-one in a span of 13 days last month.

"What are the odds of two old fogies doing this?" Ron wondered out loud.

Well, the odds of a golfer collecting a hole in one on any given hole have been estimated as high as 33,000-to-1.

So how steep are the odds of a husband and wife accomplishing the same feat just 13 days apart?

Precipitous indeed, according to Everett Community College mathematics instructor Chuck Jones, who estimated the realistic chance both would record a hole-in-one within 13 days of each other to be less than 1-in-50,000,000. Throw in the theoretical possibility of recording an ace on a par-4 or par-5 hole and their chances improve — 7-in-100,000,000.

Both Ron and Meg took up golf just 13 years ago.

"Our friend said ‘I had a lesson, I can teach you,’" Meg said with a laugh. "We just became addicted."

On their initial outing, Meg opted to use the seldom-invoked 15-second rule.

"If she mishit and could run and get the ball and tee it up again within 15 seconds, she got to hit again," said Ron, who lamented he was allotted just 10 seconds.

In the years since, both have improved dramatically. Meg plays about 180 rounds a year and sports a 10 handicap. She has won the Camaloch Golf Course Ladies Club Championship nine times. "I’ve got some crystal in the house," she conceded.

Still, golf’s version of the Holy Grail eluded her until the day after Halloween.

Meg was playing at Seven Hills Golf Course near Palm Springs, Calif., with her friend Tina Bauer of Lake Stevens.

At the 135-yard, par-3, No. 5 hole, Meg watched Bauer tee off and put a ball in the water. Bauer hit again before Meg stepped up and lofted a 7-iron shot with a slight right-to left draw toward the flag.

"It was just one of those pretty shots, if I might say so myself," she said. "It was one bounce and then into the cup."

The celebration started on the tee box.

"A lady came out of her house along the fairway and said her husband was deaf, but that he heard screaming," Bauer said. "She brought beers out to us and we just partied right there."

Golf etiquette prevailed and Meg waited until they reached the next tee before calling Ron, who was back home in Washington, to give him the news.

Meg’s fortune faded slightly when she arrived at the 19th hole to buy the traditional celebratory round of cheer. A large group had just finished a tournament.

"Twenty-five strange men just got a free drink on me, but that’s OK," she said.

Her husband’s opportunity came 13 days later when Ron and Meg played Camaloch.

Ron, 62, carries a 17 handicap, but said he feels it should be a little lower. A friend once told him: "Ron, you’re a recreational golfer. How many times a year do you play?"

"I told him about 100, and he said ‘You’re right, you should be better," Ron said with a laugh.

At Camaloch’s No. 4 hole — 156 yards with an elevated two-tiered green — Ron pulled out his trusty 9-wood. He struck the ball and it took off with a slight left to right fade carrying toward the pin located on the backside of the upper tier. Like Meg’s ace, the ball bounced once and appeared to fly into the cup.

Meg, screaming for joy, putting on her version of the sack dance. Ron was so sure the ball was in the hole. "I figured it went over the back," he said.

He called out to a green’s keeper near the hole: "Hey, where did that go?"

The man did not speak English. He just pointed toward the cup.

"I know I just started screaming," said Ron who interrupted the celebration to dutifully repair his ball mark four feet from the hole.

While highly unusual, the Lodolces’ feat will hardly qualify for a place in golfing lore. Tales abound of players who made two holes-in-one in a single round or family members who recorded aces in the same tournament.

According to the Golf Register, there are records for the oldest player to record an ace (101), the longest ace (447 yards) and the most aces in a lifetime, a mind-boggling 59.

On June 16, 1989, four players competing in the U.S. Open aced the 159-yard, No. 6 hole at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., a 1.89 quadrillion-to-1 happenstance according to a Harvard mathematician. (Note: A quadrillion is one thousand times one trillion.) Everett CC’s Jones, who in addition to teaching statistics is a ranked national master chess player, disputed those long odds.

"They weren’t independent events," Jones said. "There had to be something physical going on."

Jones suggested course conditions were altered that day by weather or by actions of the green’s keepers or other officials. He likened it to someone flipping a coin a thousand times and getting heads each time.

"Although it’s theoretically possible, it’s far more likely something else is going on. Those golfers were flipping a loaded coin that day," Jones said.

As for the Lodolces getting their aces within 13 days apart, Jones has already crunched the numbers and, well, don’t look for a repeat anytime soon.

Said Jones, with a chuckle: "That won’t happen again in their lifetimes."