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Englishman Dale Whitnell carded a remarkable two holes-in-one during his round on the second day of the South Africa Open.<\/b><\/p>\n
Whitnell aced the 179-yard second and repeated the trick on the 149-yard 12th at Durban Country Club.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old immediately followed his first hole-in-one with an eagle and he was chasing a remarkable 13-under-par 59 until making a double bogey – including an air shot – on the 16th.<\/p>\n
His eventual score of 63 beat his level-par Thursday round by nine shots.<\/p>\n
“Coming back this morning I knew I was struggling to make the cut, so I knew I needed to go out and play well and I got off to a hot start,” Whitnell told DP World Tour.<\/p>\n
“I birdied the first and hit a flush seven iron on the second, I didn’t realise it had gone in until they cheered down at the bottom.<\/p>\n
“Then I got another hole-in-one on the 12th. Bizarre.<\/p>\n
“It’s a weird feeling, everything in one. I was excited and adrenalin was pumping, but I had to focus on my job and managed to do that OK.”<\/p>\n
Whitnell, who hails from Essex and sits 545th in the world rankings, had never previously achieved a hole-in-one in competition.<\/p>\n
The US-based National Hole-in-One Registry says the odds of carding two in the same round are 67 million to one.<\/p>\n
Whitnell is just the second Englishman to have made two holes-in-one in the same round in professional competition, after John Hudson, who achieved the feat in the European Tour’s Martini International at Royal Norwich in 1971.<\/p>\n
Hudson’s double was made even more impressive by the fact that he managed to do it across successive holes, with the second coming at a 314-yard par four.<\/p>\n
American Frank Bensel Jr also made two holes-in-one on consecutive holes at the 2024 US Senior Open.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n