A 56-year-old club pro has defied the odds to make back-to-back holes-in-one at the US Senior Open.
It’s a first in the 1,001-tournament history of the USGA and believed to be the only time it’s happened on any major golf tour.
Frank Bensel used the same ball and same club for both holes-in-one on the fourth and fifth holes at the Newport Country Club in the US state of Rhode Island in the tournament’s second round.
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“It was like an out-of-body experience,” Bensel said before posing for pictures with the ball, club and flags.
“I’ve played a lot of golf in my life, and just to see a hole-in-one in a tournament is pretty rare,” he said.
“The first one was great; 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.”
Unfortunately for Bensel, he was playing among the first groups of the day, and the TV cameras were not yet manned nor recording.
It was just the second time a golfer has made two holes-in-one in the same round in any USGA event since the inaugural US Amateur was held in Newport in 1895.
According to the US’ Hole-in-One Registry, the odds for one player making two aces in the same round are 67 million to 1. The odds of aces on consecutive holes aren’t known, but few courses have consecutive par-3s like this one.
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They were Bensel’s 13th and 14th holes-in-one in a career that includes appearances in three PGA Championships and the 2007 US Open.
He never made a cut on the PGA Tour. He said his career highlight was shooting a 67 at Southern Hills at the 2021 Senior PGA Championship. Or at least it used to be.
The moment was made even sweeter because his 14-year-old son Hagen was his caddy.
Bensel was 4-over after the first round and made a bogey on the second hole of his second round. When he got to the fourth, a 158 metre par 3, his son recommended a 7-iron but Bensel knew he didn’t want to leave it short and pulled a 6-iron.
The ball landed on the front of the green, hopped a few times and rolled into the cup.
On the next hole, a 184 metre par three, Bensel again pulled out his 6-iron.
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“I tried to calm him down. Just bring him back, you know?” Hagen said.
“He landed it perfectly. And he was like, ‘How ‘bout another one?’ while it was going down.”
Frank Bensel followed up his consecutive aces with four bogeys in a row before making the turn and adding three more on the back nine. He finished the day at 4-over 74 and missed the cut with a two-day total of 9-over 149.
“I didn’t do anything great except for kind of those shots,” Bensel said.
“I was hoping that I could have added a lot more good scoring after that to have made the cut, but that didn’t happen.”
Still, his club, ball and glove are headed for the USGA’s museums in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, and Pinehurst, North Carolina.