Two Hole-in-Ones Against All Odds for Golf ‘Hack’

You can understand why George Cook just bought a couple of lottery tickets—he’s feeling lucky.

The former bareback rider and bucking horse rodeo enthusiast bagged two hole-in-ones in the span of three holes on Tuesday night playing with his buddies at Anaconda Hills Golf Course, during his regular Men’s League play.

After draining a 7-iron from 149 yards on the 13th hole the 58-year-old golfer says it was the first hole-in-one of his 40 years of teeing-it-up. “I figured I could check off the old bucket list,” said Cook.

But, the fireworks were not over. Two holes, later on, #15 from 112 yards, Cook did it again using his sand wedge as his weapon of choice.

“Oh my god. It was crazy,” Cook said. “I’m just a hack, like everybody else. I’d never even been close to one before.”

Nevertheless, Cook claims the shots he hit felt quite good on his magical night.  He described the first one, saying “When I hit it, it just like butter. Oh man, I thought, I hit it good… It hops twice and boom, right in the hole.” The second one “was like butter again. Pow. Nice and high,” said Cook.

“It was really cool,” the happy golfer said. “I had guys from all over the course coming over and congratulating me.”

Connie Cramer-Caouette, a pro since 1978 and golf manager for the City of Great Falls, told USA Today, “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Shooting two hole-in-ones in a nine-hole golf match boggles the mind and defies astronomical odds. An average golfer faces a 1 in 12,500 probability of getting just one hole in one in a round. To do it twice in a round the odds approximate 1  in 2 billion.

As far as the bets were concerned with Cook that night, it was pure devastation. On his last hole, he sunk a 30-foot birdie putt to card a two under 33, about 10 less than he normally shoots on the 9-hole track. Cook told his playing partner Kent Cox “he might as well just go home.” He boasted, “I could do no wrong.”