The Loop

What's rarer than a double eagle? Two double eagles on the same day

January 10, 2014

A hole-in-one? Sure, those are nice. But if you really want to do something special on the PGA Tour, you're going to have to better.

James Hahn did just that in the second round of the Sony Open to vault into contention. Hahn holed his second shot from 193 yards with a 6-iron on the par-5 ninth hole at Waialae CC for a rare albatross. However, despite being three under par on one hole, he made three bogeys on the back nine to only finish with a two-under 68.

How rare is a double eagle? There were only two on tour during the entire 2013 season: Luke List in the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open and Charl Schwartzel in the second round of the Canadian Open.

But believe it or not, Hahn wasn't even the first professional golfer to pull off the feat on Friday. Joost Luiten also accomplished the trick on the European Tour in the second round of the Volvo Golf Champions, matching the total number of albatrosses recorded on that tour last season. Luiten holed a 4-iron from 248 yards on the par-5 10th (At the :50 mark of this video) at Durban CC in South Africa on his way to a 67 and a share of the 36-hole lead.

Unfortunately, there isn't good footage of Hahn's shot, but Adam Sarson (Twitter: @Adam_Sarson) made the following GIF of the two shots side by side:

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Hahn said the albatross was the second of his career, the first coming on the Nationwide Tour. Luiten said the double eagle was the first of his life. It is believed to be the first time an albatross has been recorded on two major tours on the same day.