The Local Knowlege

Results in records and rarities Back to Local Knowledge Index

Ex-NAIA star shoots 55 at River Oaks GC

Thursday, May 17, 2012 Comments

From the May 21 issue of Golf World:

Rhein Gibson is 1,444th on the World Ranking, having missed three cuts and finished T-58 in two Nationwide Tour events and two Australian Tour events in 2010 and 2011. But when it comes to playing River Oaks GC in Edmond, Oklah., he's all-world.

Gibson set the course record of 60 earlier this month, then shattered that mark with a 16-under 55 on May 12 at the 6,850-yard venue. The 26-year-old Lismore, Australia, native is a 2008 graduate of Oklahoma Christian, where he was a NAIA All-American. He made 12 birdies, two eagles and four pars during his stellar round.

blog_gibson_0517.jpg

Gibson's round is believed to be one of the lowest recorded on a full-length (more than 6,000 yards) course. The only 55 recorded in tournament play was by Homero Blancas in the 1962 Premier Invitational in Longview, Texas.

-- John Antonini

Keywords:

Did a golf ball kill a gray whale in Washington?

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 Comments

In the latest example of life imitating art, a a gray whale was found dead with a golf ball in its stomach. Doesn't ring a bell? Then you must not be a big "Seinfeld" person.

We don't want to make light of a whale dying, but the situation makes it impossible for fans of the TV show to not picture George Costanza, caught in a lie that he's a marine biologist, trudging out towards the water to try to help a beached whale. Completely clueless, he miraculously winds up saving the mammal by pulling a golf ball from its blowhole.

Related: The best golf movie scenes in history

In his subsequent retelling/embellishment of the story ("The sea was angry that day, my friends...") to his friends at the coffee shop, Kramer, who had been working on his golf game at the beach the day before, asks, "Is that a Titleist?" And upon seeing that it is, utters the classic line: "Hole in one."

Read more
Keywords:

New Jersey golfer aces the same hole twice in one day

Thursday, April 12, 2012 Comments
Masters Sunday can provide quite a quandary for avid golfers, especially when the tournament is played during a holiday. You have to decide if you can fit a bit of golf in at some point in the day before tuning into the final round, or do you keep the peace at home and stick with family activities, thereby "earning" you the right to settle in to see who gets to wear the green jacket?

Joel Ramin, a member at Bayonne Golf Club in New Jersey, may have set the pattern for himself and the rest of us based on what he did last Sunday, and it's all good. His method: get your golf in, reap the rewards, and finish in time to watch the Masters afterward. By choosing to play golf before the back-nine drama at Augusta, Ramin played 36 holes with just a caddie and came away with a pair of aces on the same hole.

Joel Ace.jpgBayonne (N.J.) Golf Club member Joel Ramin with his keepsakes
from Sunday's memorable round. Photo courtesy Bayonne Golf Club

Playing from the blue tees first on the course located on New York Harbor, Ramin used a gap wedge from 118 yards to ace the fifth hole, which is the shortest at Bayonne. Coming through the second time playing the white tees, he aced the fifth from 106 yards using a 54-degree wedge.
Read more
Keywords:

Two aces up the sleeve of 12-year-old California golfer during nine-hole round

Wednesday, March 14, 2012 Comments

In a 20-minute span, a 12-year old duplicated a feat most golfers only dream of accomplishing.

Naomi Lee, a 7th grader from Menlo Park, Calif., etched her name into golf's record books when she aced two holes in the same round on Pebble Beach's nine-hole Peter Hay executive course on March 3.

Her aces came on the 82-yard third hole (using a 9-iron) and the 64-yard sixth hole (using a 52-degree wedge).

According to Golf Digest's knowledge, of the 150 reported double-ace rounds, Lee is the youngest female to pull off the trick. What are the odds of hitting two holes-in-one in one round? That'd be 67 million-to-1, according to a Sept. 2005 column in Golf Digest by David Owen.

While the odds decrease somewhat in Lee's case because she had nine par-3 holes instead of the standard four par-3 holes on a regulation course, it doesn't change the fact that a 12-year-old accomplished the feat.

Lee's officially spoiled for the rest of her golf career.

Naomi_Lee.jpg

"It's something you don't really understand the gravity of until you really start to dig into it," says father Doug Lee, who's a member at The Olympic Club. "Maybe it's something Tiger or Jack have never done."

Actually, he's right. According to PGA Tour records, it's only been done twice in the modern era on tour. At the 2006 Reno-Tahoe Open, Yusaku Miyazato aced two holes within a six-hole span in the second round on Nos. 7 and 12 at Montreux G. & C.C. (He shot a 66 and finished T-21). The first was Bill Whedon, who made two holes-in-one in the first round of the 1955 Insurance City Open.

Read more
Keywords:

Is it possible to win too many club championships?

Friday, February 3, 2012 Comments

It's too early in most areas of the country for golfers to be worried about their club's big show now, but that crown jewel -- the club championship -- will be front and center before you know it. And anyone who thinks they're a contender will be in full preparation mode. In most cases, the field will be wide open with plenty of favorites. But in the case of the profiled subject to follow, a dominant pattern of winning can bring with it the heavy toll of jealousy and contempt.

McKitrick wins another, wants more, more, more

The numbers roll off of Arlene McKitrick's tongue in a simple tone, as if she were recalling the items on a grocery list. But she's actually listing the number of golf tournaments she's won.

Club championships won: 95. Senior tournaments won: 60. Other countries she's won titles in: nine.

blog_mckitrick_0202.jpg

McKitrick, a resident of Longboat Key, Fla., upped her total number of tournament victories to 171 this past weekend, winning Longboat Key Club's women's club championship for the 35th consecutive year. According to our records, her 95 club titles are a record for male or female winning championships at multiple clubs, and her 35 titles at Longboat Key are fourth-best for a single club for women and are the most consecutively won for either sex.

McKitrick's club-championship victory breakdown by club includes: Longboat Key Club, 35; TPC Prestancia, 9; New Albany Country Club, 9; Tartan Fields, 8; Congressional, 7; Ritz-Carlton Members Club, 6; Concession, 5; The Oaks, 5; Sara Bay, 4; The Lakes, 3; Washingtonian, 2, and Wintergreen, 2. A member now of at least three clubs, McKitrick can't add to her Washingtonian total: According to Golf Digest Architecture Editor Ron Whitten, the 36-hole facility closed its courses by 1986.

And to think she could have won more. Of the eight tournaments she's lost, she was runner-up in all of them.

Related: A hole-in-one oddity


McKitrick, who didn't start playing golf until she was 30, is 65 and clearly living by the Golf Digest motto to "Think young, play hard."

Read more
Keywords:

Want a hole-in-one? Head to Bend, Oregon

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Comments

blog_aces_0124.jpgThe 2011 golf season will be hard to beat for two sets of golfers who experienced golf nirvana at Crooked River Ranch Golf Course near Bend, Ore. The course itself will have a hard time topping what took place in 2011 as well.

On two occasions, July 28 and Oct. 28, two golfers each aced a hole while playing in the same group. While the feat of two golfers acing in the same group has been done dozens of times in our record keeping, having it happen twice in a year at the same course is indeed a rarity and it could be a first. It's a feat not easily checked in all our record books. Trumping this feat, of course, would be having more than two golfers making a hole-in-one on the same day on the same course, and probably the most famous of that is when four players aced the sixth hole at Oak Hill in the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open.

But let's not spoil the fun for our Crooked River achievers. On July 28, Jan Markham used an 8-iron to ace the 11th hole, 106 yards from the red tees, her fourth hole-in-one. Her friend and playing partner, Ellie Rice, was happy for her pal but since it was the third time she'd witnessed an ace in a year's time without ever getting one of her own, she wasn't totally overjoyed. And she wasn't likely to see one then, either, since we list odds of 17 million to 1 for two average players acing the same hole in the same group. After another group member, Anita Britton, played her tee shot to the back of the green, however, Rice struck her pitching wedge, watched the ball land short, right of the hole, and then roll in for an ace on top of Markham's ball.

Read more
Keywords:

Sister aces are rare, but not unprecedented

Thursday, November 11, 2010 Comments
What happened Tuesday for sisters and University of Central Oklahoma teammates Erica and Lindsey Bensch on a golf course in Edmond, Okla., was a great example of what occurs nowadays in the world of golf records and rarities.

As unique and crazy and unbelievable as it was for the two to ace a hole during the same round of golf at KickingBird Golf Club, our authoritative records show it had been done before, and with a little more pizazz. The Bensch's are the third set of sisters Golf Digest has recorded acing a hole in the same round. In 2006, a pair of identical twin sisters made back-to-back holes-in-one in California. And in 2005, another pair of sisters in California made back-to-back aces. And in another family twist, also in 2005, a pair of female cousins each made an ace on the same hole, in the same round, back-to-back in the same group.

We figure the odds of two average players making a hole-in-one in the same round are 17 million to 1. The Bensch's are presumably better than average as college players, which would improve the odds, but as sisters, would that figure to be a rarer event than if it had been two unrelated players? We'll figure that everything equals out and stick with the 17 million to 1; that is still strong odds against it happening. (Read David Owen's essay on holes-in-one).

Where the Bensch sisters can claim their feat was a little more special is that, although they didn't go back to back, they had their great day on a regulation-length course while the two sets of California aces took place on executive-length layouts. So Erica and Lindsey will enter our record books as not the first sisters to make aces in the same round but will have their own distinction to a remarkable achievement.

-- Cliff Schrock, Editor, Golf Digest Resource Center

Keywords:

The latest on golf digest

Search

Close

Thank you for signing up for the Tip of the Week newsletter.

You will receive your first newsletter soon.
Subscribe to Golf World
Subscribe today

Golf Digest Rewards

Golf Equipment: 3Balls.com - New and used golf equipment

Sign-up for Golf Digest's Above The Cut


most emailed

most commented

most viewed