The Loop

Compared to Powerball odds, your hole-in-one chances are good

January 13, 2016

I'm writing this story this morning because that's my job, but tomorrow when I win the Powerball Jackpot, I will not just quit my job and start my own website, I plan to buy the entire Internet.

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A solid plan? Apparently not. The New York Times this morning reflects on the odds of winning the $1.5 billion jackpot that will be drawn Wednesday night. Put simply, at 292 million to one, they're not good.

"Consider: If you printed out the name of every United States resident on individual pieces of paper, put them in a giant bowl and selected one at random, the odds of picking President Obama are not far from the odds of winning the Powerball," the Times writes.

How does this relate to golf. Well, other than reminding you you should probably not count on building that private golf oasis just yet, we're here to at least say your chances of making a hole-in-one now seem downright probable. Having long tracked hole in one odds at Golf Digest, we put the average golfer's chances of an ace at 12,500 to win, which the Times reminds us is 23,376 times more likely than winning the Powerball. Not bad!

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From there, it becomes a little less likely, but still not "sitting next to a unicorn on the subway" or "winning the Powerball" unlikely.

According to our calculations, the odds of an average golfer acing a 200-yard hole is 150,000 to 1.

The odds of two average players in the same foursome acing the same hole is 17 million to 1. And the odds of a low-handicap golfer making TWO aces in the same round is 67 million to 1.

Again, not something you should necessarily count on, but again, compared to the Powerball, you still have a way better chance.

(Read more about your still ridiculously slim hole-in-one chances.)