The next round in Newport is on Frank Bensel — and make it a double after the 56-year-old club pro from New York on Friday made back-to-back holes-in-one at the US Senior Open — a first in the 1,001-tournament history of the USGA and believed to be the only time it has happened on any major golf tour.
“It was like an out-of-body experience,” Bensel said before posing for pictures with the ball, 6-iron and pin flags from the fourth and fifth holes at the Newport Country Club.
“I’ve played a lot of golf in my life, and just to see a hole-in-one in a tournament is pretty rare,” he said. “The first one was great; that got me under par for the day. And then the second one, I just couldn’t believe it. To even think that that could happen was amazing.”
Photo: AP
It was just the second time a golfer has made two holes-in-one in the same round in any USGA event since the inaugural US Amateur in Newport in 1895.
Donald Bliss aced the eighth and 10th holes in the 1987 US Mid-Amateur at Brook Hollow in Dallas.
Because he started on the back nine, Bliss made a hole-in-one on his first and his 17th holes of the day.
According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, the odds for one player making two aces in the same round are 67 million to 1. The odds of aces on consecutive holes are not known, but few courses have consecutive par-threes like the 7,024-yard, par-70 A.W. Tillinghast course on the mouth of Narragansett Bay.
They were Bensel’s 13th and 14th holes-in-one in a career that includes appearances in three PGA Championships and the 2007 US Open
On the fifth tee, Bensel pulled out his 6-iron and took aim at the pin 202 yards away.
“I tried to calm him down. Just bring him back, you know?” said Hagen Bensel, his son and caddie, in a bid to put the first ace in perspective. “He landed it perfectly. And he was like: ‘How ’bout another one?’ while it was going down.”
Frank Bensel followed up his consecutive aces with four bogeys in a row before making the turn and adding three more on the back nine.
He finished the day at four-over 74 and missed the cut.
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