It’s no secret that golfers quite like a little gamble or bet on the course. But what are the odds of achieving some of the rarest feats in the game? BRENDAN BARRATT finds out.
Hole-in-one
Statisticians estimate the odds of an average golfer making a hole-in-one at around 12, 500 to 1.
However, those odds shorten significantly when it is a low-handicap golfer, who can expect a 1 in 5,000 chance of achieving the perfect fluke.
A Tour player’s odds are even lower – at 3,000 to 1. Yet when Doug Weaver, Mark Wiebe, Jerry Pate and Nick Price all made a hole-in-one on the 6th hole of Oak Hill Country Club in the second round of the 1989 US Open, statisticians reckoned the odds of this happening were in the region of 332,000 to 1.
For a regular amateur golfer, it takes an average of 24 years to achieve a hole-in-one, with the average handicap index of a golfer who achieves their ace being 14. Depending on how you read that last sentence, there should be cause for plenty of hope or despair if you haven’t yet made your ‘one’.
The odds of two players in the same fourball making an ace on the same hole are astronomical, at 17 million to 1, while the chances of a player making two aces in the same round are a cool 67 million to 1. In other words, far less likely than winning the lottery.
Albatross
The chances of making a two on a par five – or an ace on a par four – are pretty steep, at around 6 million to 1. Considering that only about 10% of players can even reach the green in few enough shots to stand a chance, this seems about fair. It didn’t stop Abraham Ancer of Mexico doing so at The Summit Club in Las Vegas in 2021.
Condor
The condor – a hole-in-one on a par five – is so rare that bookies don’t even provide odds of making one. Likely needing to hit a sprinkler head, cut a big dogleg or make use of a huge tailwind, there have been only five recorded condors in history.
Putting
Of course, we all expect to make the shortish putts that we stand over, but even the odds of a Tour professional making an eight-foot putt are only around 50%. For an average amateur golfer, the likelihood of sinking an eight-foot putt drops to just one in four putts.
From 20 feet, the Tour professional is likely to sink one in every seven putts, while your weekend opponent is closer to one in every 17 attempts. Unless you’re playing for money, in which case he will keep on rolling them in all day.
When it comes to three-putting, that’s when the weekend warriors really show their true colours. An amateur player will three-jab one in every 20 putts from just 15 feet, whereas a Tour professional is highly unlikely to make this mistake – three-putting on average only once every 100 attempts.
From 60 feet, even the Tour professional will three-putt one in every five attempts, whereas us hackers are likely to curse the putting gods one in every two putts from this distance.
Struck down
The odds of being hit by a golf ball while playing golf are estimated at around 4,500 to 1 – although this would obviously be affected by the layout of the golf course and the skill level of the golfers around you.
While it pays to be aware of golfers around you, there is still a chance of being struck by something far more deadly – with odds of being struck by lightning while playing golf at around 60,000 to 1.
Playing well
Assuming your handicap is accurate, and you’re not what many golfers refer to as a ringer or a sandbagger, you can expect to shoot your handicap on average once in every four or five rounds. The likelihood of shooting an exceptional score, however, which is seven strokes better than your Handicap Index (HI) – not necessarily your Course Handicap – varies according to your HI.
With more strokes to play with, albeit far less of a consistent player, it stands to reason that it is more likely for a higher-handicapped golfer to go seven shots deep than a scratch golfer. So, for example, the odds of a 30-handicapper shooting an exceptional score are 101 to 1.
The chances of a scratch golfer shooting seven shots better than their HI is understandably high – 2,350 to 1. That’s because very few scratch players are able to shoot around seven under par, whereas a 30-handicapper is quite capable of shooting 98 – or 128.
This makes things interesting when some players regularly manage to shoot exceptional rounds when playing in amateur events that offer big prizes.
And what are the chances that these players will ‘forget’ to enter their scores on the handicap system? Almost 100%!
– This article first appeared in the September 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images
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