John Van Helden's first hole-in-one on New Zealand fairways came four days too early.
Van Helden aced the sixth hole at Poverty Bay Golf Club on Sunday morning.
Teeing off a shortened version of the hole due to the golf course being prepped for tournament play this week, Van Heldenachieved perfection with a 9-iron.
He and his playing group watched as his ball never left the pin, hit the green, bounced twice then slotted perfectly between the bottom of the flag and the hole.
The 33,000-to-1 odds of getting an ace were increased by Level 2 guidelines for golf courses, requiring the hole to be a lot more shallow than usual — thereby upping the chances of the ball bouncing out of the hole or off the flagstick.
Van Helden, the men's club captain at the Bay, didn't care about odds. He was too busy celebrating his third hole-in-one — the others achieved while he was living in England.
Had Van Helden got the ace tomorrow during the Poverty Bay men's open strokeplay qualifying, he would have qualified for the $1000 Nearest-To-Pin Challenge to be held after the finals of the Open on Saturday afternoon.
