Back-to-back holes-in-one on par 4s?! This father and son just accomplished the unthinkable

At first, they were told it was a 17-million-to-one moment.

Then, a quant investor crunched the numbers, deeming it to be 1 in 6 trillion.

Playing in the same foursome, Jim Rohrstaff, 46, and his son Blake, 18, each aced the 280-yard, par-4 eighth hole at Cullen Links in Scotland on July 12. According to Haggin Oaks, the odds for the average golfer making a hole-in-one on a par 3 are approximately 12,500 to 1 and 2,500 to 1 for professionals. The odds of a father and son doing that consecutively on a par-4? Practically unheard of.

“Who knows what it actually is,” Jim said of the odds, “but pretty insane, that’s for sure.”

As a frame of reference, only one player has a hole-in-one on a par 4 in PGA Tour history: Andrew Magee in 2001.

Alongside his wife, Kara, Jim planned a nine-day, six-course golf trip for Blake and their younger son, Eric, to experience Scotland. (The Rohrstaffs reside in New Zealand, where Jim has been the Director at Tara Iti Golf Club Limited since 2014 and the Managing Director at Te Arai Links since 2018.) Over the past several years, Jim said he and Kara played in the Callaway Links Challenge at St. Andrews.

Though they weren’t participating in the event this year, they wanted to return to Scotland with their boys and play courses they’d never played. This led to Jim and Kara planning a trip to also play Crail Golf Club, Cruden Bay, Nairn Golf Club, Castle Stuart and Royal Dornoch. As the trip was planned, Cullen was located in the middle of the courses, prompting them to add it to their itinerary.

After Jim and Blake—who are 3 and 4 handicaps, respectively—both notched double-bogeys on 7, Jim had the tee on 8. As they walked up the steps to the tee box, Jim brought a driver and 3 wood, while Blake just had a driver. A quick jab from his son was the best advice Jim could’ve received before hitting the first tee shot.

“He gave me grief about, basically, you need driver, old man, you can’t hit 3 wood that far,” Jim recalled.

So Jim took his son’s advice and hit his driver. He remembers his ball landing just left of the green and kicking right. The group thought the ball was good, likely just off to the left of the small green, so they stopped watching before Blake stepped up to the tee.

After counseling his father, Blake stepped up to the tee confidently, announcing he was about to hit a low bullet.

“I accidentally actually did that,” Blake said, “and it landed kind of on the left front of the green and skipped and rolled over to the back slope. And there was a backstop behind the green, and we kind of saw it coming back, but then from that far, we were just like, ‘Yeah, that'll be good, whatever.’ ”

Without knowing both of their shots landed in the hole, they watched Kara and Eric both hit their balls before trying to find their balls. As Jim and Blake looked for Jim’s ball on the left in the rough, Eric walked to the back of the green to search for Blake’s.

As Eric—who is newer to golf—did that, he walked by the hole before providing the best news his older brother and father could’ve imagined:

“There’s two balls in here.”

“We’re like, what?” Jim said. “And I go over there, and I look down, and I mean, my eyes must have been the size of a dinner plate. I mean, I just, I couldn't believe it.”

Jim excitedly exclaimed, “Blake, it’s in the hole!”

But Blake didn’t yet comprehend the situation, asking whose ball was in the hole.

Once Jim responded that it was both, euphoria set in.

At the beginning of their trip, Jim bought a one-liter bottle of Código Reposado tequila. For every time they birdied a hole, they took a shot from a shot glass they bought from the Old Course at St. Andrews.

“Needless to say, we enjoyed a little bit of tequila on the ninth tee before we hit,” Jim said with a laugh.

For most, it takes a lifetime of playing golf to even have a chance at a hole-in-one. At 18, Blake is already there. And Jim is no stranger to the ace as his shot at Cullen marked his 11th all-time hole-in-one.

Following post-round whiskey with the locals, Jim began thinking of ways to commemorate his and Blake’s shots—eventually settling on making a shadow box with the balls, potentially a picture of the hole, their scorecards and the now-empty bottle of Código Reposado.

It’s a special way to honor a moment the father and son will never forget—one that, statistics suggest, may never happen again.