MINNEAPOLIS — The odds of an amateur golfer making a hole-in-one are 12,000 to 1, according to the National Hole-In-One Registry.
Pfft. That's nothing.
Now calculate the odds of the same golf ball being used to make an ace on the same day at the same course by two different players.
"I don't think there are even odds for that," St. Louis Park (Minn.) High golf coach Dan Becker said.
Probably less than a person getting struck by a meteor after winning the lottery.
"I don't know if it's ever happened in the history of golf," said Dan Simpson, head pro at Minneapolis Golf Club.
That exact scenario happened Thursday evening at Simpson's course.
It started when 13-year-old Preston Miller carded his first career hole-in-one on No. 4 from 121 yards. Miller, a seventh-grader who plays on St. Louis Park High's varsity team, hit a 7-iron into the wind. The ball hopped a few times and rolled into the hole.
"I was jumping up and down and yelling," Miller said.
He didn't, however, put the ball into his bag as a keepsake. He kept playing the same ball.
Three holes later, he lost the ball.
Miller pulled his tee shot on No. 7, then tried a high cut over trees on his second shot. The ball struck a tree and Miller was unable to find it in the rough.
"I was pretty sad," he said.
He finished his round and then gathered with his St. Louis Park teammates and coaches in the clubhouse for a round of 1919 Root Beer.
Back on the course, club member Ricardo Fernandez found trouble on hole No. 12, which runs alongside No. 7. As he searched for his ball near some trees, he found a Titleist Pro V1 ball with an "SLP" logo on it. Nobody was playing that hole at the time so he figured the ball was lost. He picked it up and put it in his bag.
Fernandez located his own ball but then lost it again. He grabbed the ball he found in the rough out of his bag.
"It was right on top," he said. "It was a great ball. I wasn't playing very well so might as well hit this one."
On the 181-yard hole No. 16, he made the fourth hole-in-one in his career using the ball with the "SLP" logo. He tucked it back into his bag.
Fernandez knew someone else had recorded a hole-in-one that day. When he finished his round, he showed the starter the ball as he exited the 18th green. That's when he learned that a member of the St. Louis Park team also scored a hole-in-one and that the group was still inside.
Fernandez found them, still holding the ball, and thanked them for leaving a ball on the course that he used on his ace.
One of Miller's teammates asked Fernandez where he found it. In the rough near trees on No. 7, he said. It was a Titleist 4, which is what Miller plays on the St. Louis Park team.
Imagine their reaction.
"I was like, there's no way," Miller said, "because I also hit a hole-in-one with it."
Fernandez had a different immediate reaction.
"You played with the same ball that you hit a hole-in-one with?" he said. "Rule No. 1 is you stick it in your bag."
The group had a good time celebrating how something so absurdly improbable became a true story. Fernandez and Miller took a picture together holding the ball, two strangers now forever linked by golf's goofy nature.
"How do you compare notes on something like that?" Fernandez said. "Honestly, I wish the story was better than I lost a golf ball somewhere."
Alas, he was back on the course Friday morning for another round. No hole-in-one this time and he didn't have the "SLP" ball. Fernandez didn't hesitate in giving it back to Miller, who put it on a trophy shelf in his bedroom.
"Mount it," Fernandez told him, "and hopefully it gives you a lifetime of luck. Because oh my gosh, there is a lot of luck in that ball."
