For most golfers, simply being able to get the ball to go where they want it to is the dream. Some, though, look slightly more further afield when it comes to what they’re hoping to achieve on the golf course.

The idea of managing to get a hole-in-one is the kind of thing that most golfers will never achieve, but some actually manage it more than once. You would expect professionals to be able to achieve it reasonably easily, but the fact that they don’t tells you just how hard it is to pull off.

Even so, there are those that have done it with a degree of regularity, as you will soon learn.

What is a Hole-in-One?

Although it has a descriptive name, not everyone will know exactly what a hole-in-one actually is. In simple terms, the achievement is managed when someone hits the ball off the tee and it goes straight into the hole.

The important thing to remember is that the shot must be the golfer’s first, so if you happen to have mishit your first shot, perhaps seeing it land in a water hazard or going out of bounds, taking another one from the tee will actually be your third shot. That means it won’t count as a hole-in-one, even if you hit the ball straight into the hole from the tee at the second time of asking.

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Holes-in-one are rare. They occur on par three holes most often, but a hole-in-one on a par five has been recorded five times to date. There is an estimate on the chances of scoring a hole-in-one, which puts it at around 12,500/1. With the majority of courses having four par threes, that means that you can expect a hole-in-one to be achieved once every 3,125 rounds of golf played.

The odds for professionals to manage it are lower, coming in at around 2,500/1. The 1868 Open Championship, which was held at Prestwick, is believed to be the location of the first recorded hole-in-one.

The Most Managed by Professional Golfers

There are some golfers who specialise in scoring holes-in-one, such as Mancil Davis. He is widely believed to have achieved 51 holes-in-one, taking the title from Norman Manley. Manley was credited with 59 holes-in-one, but they weren’t all witnessed and so their validity remained in doubt.

We are interested in the record number managed by professional golfers, which Davis didn’t become because of his habit of ‘hitting irons like Doug Sanders and drives like Colonel Sanders’. The Guinness Book of Records limits its hole-in-one count to professional events, so we will too.

Taking a Closer Look

Knowing which golfers have managed an Ace the most times is one thing, but now we need to take a closer look at the ones who have pulled it off.

Robert Allenby – 10 Holes-in-One

Born in Melbourne on the 12th of July 1971, Robert Allenby is not a name that many will click to straight away. That is because his best performance in any of the Majors was tied-seventh, which he achieved in the US Open in 2004 and the Open Championship four years later. Those that know golf well might recognise his name thanks to the fact that he enjoyed four PGA Tour wins, as well as the same number of victories on the European Tour. Mainly, though, he is known thanks to the fact that he has managed ten holes-in-one on the PGA Tour, which is the joint-most of any golfer.

Here is a look at the holes-in-one that Allenby managed on the PGA Tour:

Hal Sutton – 10 Holes-in-One

The only other player to have matched Allenby’s record of ten holes-in-one at the time of writing is Hal Sutton. Born in the Louisiana city of Shreveport in the United States of America on the 28th of April 1958, Sutton actually won the PGA Championship back in 1983. He also came tied-fourth in the US Open four years later, as well as finishing tied-tenth in the Open Championship in 1999 and tenth outright in the Masters a year later. The fact that he managed the number of Aces that he did is what helped him make the record books, however, even if he does have to share the honour.

Here is a look at Sutton’s holes-in-one:

Hole-in-One Trivia

As you might imagine, there is plenty of trivia around the phenomenon of getting a hole-in-one. Getting a hole-in-one once is tricky enough, but to see your friends hit an Ace and then hole one yourself is about as thrilling as it can get.

That is exactly what happened to Matt Parker and Travis Ferrante within minutes of one another during a round at Maine’s Portland Country Club back in 2012. They were playing the fourth hole at the golf course on an unassuming Tuesday afternoon when Parker sent his shot onto the green and then watched in amazement as it went in.

Ferrante was up next, seething on account of the fact that he was playing in a match against Parker. He repeated the trick, however, ensuring that the man he was up against didn’t get too far ahead in their match. According to the rules, a hole-in-one only counts officially if you finish the course, so the two men and their playing partners rushed around the rest of the holes before a storm hit.

Remarkably, another member of their group came within a few feet of also managing an Ace, whilst earlier in the day a different golfer had managed to achieve the same thing on the seventh.