Golf: Veteran doesn't have to wait long for ace in hole

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Some very good veteran golfers could play the sport for four decades and still not make an ace, but the latest "hole in one" in Wanganui golf comes from a Tawhero player in only her fourth year.

Sharon Murdoch took her driver out on the Par 3 seventh hole during the Tawhero club's medal competition on February 22, and using tips learned from her clubmates pulled a great swing towards the flag 137m away.

"I kind of hit it low, as I've been playing up at Belmont at the Thursday Business House [league]," she said.

"It turned and it just rolled gently to the hole.

"It was a bit of a shock."

Murdoch said she after a couple of near misses during the past four months she had allowed herself to wonder if an ace was possible.

The 59-year-old has always had a passion for golf, even though she took up the sport later down the track after having become a cricketer in her teenage years.

"I've always wanted to play [golf] all my life but, when I was younger, girls didn't play it."

She had a couple of lessons with Peter Cassidy and then just went out and learned the game by repetition, finding out that no two rounds were similar, even on the same course.

"I play with some really awesome people who have been a great help to me men and women," Murdoch said.

The two most recent aces in Wanganui had been recorded in November and December by Blue Davies and Ray Mosen, also Tawhero club members, during the Business House League at the Belmont Links.

American golf insurance company US Hole In One calculates the odds of the average player making the shot at 12,500 to 1.