Why Every Golf Hole-In-One Is Lucky

Oct 21, 2013 by GBCAdmin

Hitting a 1.6 ounce white ball with a metal club into a small cup hundreds of yards away is not easy. It’s lucky. People around the world experience hole-in-ones on occasion, but the small percentage chance of the occurrence is far under analyzed in my opinion.

My argument is that regardless of how talented a golfer is or how quality his or her shot is, a hole in one still requires an absurd amount of luck. My reasons are here:

Weather
With such a small ball and the exactness required to get a hole in one, it makes sense that weather is a large factor in a hole in one. Whether it’s moisture in the air or even a small gust of wind, any calculation by the golfer is immediately put to chance when the club impacts the ball. The physical environment that the shot takes place in is undoubtedly slightly different just after the swing, and therefore the shot is ultimately luck if it goes in. The amount of luck can be argued all day, but it would be a big stretch to say that weather doesn’t have an uncontrollable impact.

We’re human
As much as we golfers think we hit the ‘perfect shot’, it’s never perfect because we’re human. We’re not a robot hitting a golf ball in a vacuum with no gravity or elemental pressures. It doesn’t seem feasible that a human can swing a metal club, while being lined up perfectly straight, and drop a tiny ball into a cup hundreds of yards away. Golfers are amazing, but they’re still human. This is what makes the sport so beautiful. We can always improve, even when we get a hole-in-one.

No green is perfect
Let’s just pretend that a golfer can actually hit a perfect shot and control the ball up until it makes contact with the green. Let’s also pretend that they read the topography of the green perfectly and it landed in the exact spot they were aiming for. Even then, there isn’t a green that’s ever been perfect, and this makes any hole-in-one majorly lucky. Even if a golfer calculated everything down to the millimetre, there could be a divot or even an insect in the path of the ball.

Golf is a sport that has slowly become a world game. Courses are being designed and constructed in all corners of the planet. Part of the draw to the sport is that a player’s performance can always be improved upon. Even if someone reaches the pinnacle and gets a hole-in-one, they haven’t mastered golf. They just played a good enough shot to have luck finish it off. This is why we all love it.

Scott McCormick writes for Dallas Golf Now about the best courses to play in Texas.