HARTFORD, Conn. – The odds of making two holes-in-one in the same round are reportedly 67 million to one.
But for the second time in less than four months, it happened in Naples, Fla. On Jan. 20, Kevin Lamb, 67, made a pair of aces in a seven-hole span at Quail Creek Country Club. Back in October, Randy Jones, 70, made two in the same round at Wyndemere Country Club.
Lamb, who annually visits Naples from Connecticut, was playing in a scramble on the Quail Course at Quail Creek, and on No. 17, his second hole, he hit a 5-hybrid from 175 yards that disappeared into the cup.
“It landed halfway between the front of the green and the hole and rolled right in,” Lamb told the Naples Daily News. “I couldn’t see it, the way the light was. A couple of the other guys in the group had better eyesight. They said, ‘Oh, that went in. That went in.’ I said, ‘Sure. Sure.’ We got up there and there were no balls around, and it was in the cup. It was pretty exciting.”
Lamb then chipped in on the next hole and made a 30-foot putt on the ensuing one.
“I was unconscious,” he said.
When Lamb’s group reached the fifth hole, his eighth of the round, he pulled out an 8-iron on the 139-yard hole.
“I hit it good. It looked good,” he said. “I didn’t want to be cocky and say, ‘Oh, this is going in.’ But it bounced once and disappeared. The pin was on the back of the green, and I thought it must have gone long. One of the fellas in the group said, ‘That went in on the fly.’ I said, ‘No, it couldn’t have gone in on the fly.’”
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, all of the cups had liners for safety reasons, making them shallower.
“How could it even stay in there?” he said. “So I get out of the cart and I bring my chipper and putter, and I walk to the back of the green. And I don’t see it. … We were all going crazy. I tried to not get too excited.”
Lamb has been vacationing in Naples for 10 years and retired this past year after being a managing partner in an aerospace manufacturing business. He now has four holes-in-one, including one about five years ago on the fifth hole at Quail Creek. He made his other ace at Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford, Conn.
Lamb said his game fell apart after his second ace on the way to a 77. “I couldn’t even knock in 4-footers,” Lamb said.
But any disappointment was softened when he finished, and a group of 40 men were in the clubhouse.
“We happened to be the last group that finished,” Lamb said. “We walked into the bar and grill, and it was about 1 o’clock. All 40 guys and a number of other lunch people, everybody started standing up and clapping. It was pretty cool.”
Lamb’s feat elicited memories of the most famous double-aces-in-a-round by W.W. Whedon of Farmington, Conn., who made holes-in-one on the 168-yard fifth hole with a 5-iron and 208-yard ninth hole with a 3-iron in the first round of the 1955 Insurance City Open (now Travelers Championship) at Wethersfield Country Club on Sept. 2. Whedon is the only amateur to accomplish the rarity in a PGA Tour event and has a license plate on his car that reads “THIO” for “Two Holes In One.”
Whedon’s achievement is commemorated in “The History of the PGA Tour in Connecticut” display in The First Tee of Connecticut learning center next to the practice range at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell that hosts the Travelers Championship.
