Lifestyle
September 17, 2018 - 9:17 am EDT 6 years ago

Golfer Makes Hole-In-One Worth $1 Million

Chris Chaney Chris Chaney

This is sure to be one of the craziest stories you read all year. 

Pine Hills Country Club in Sheboygan, Wisconsin does a very cool thing for any of their members who are in their Hole-In-One Club: if a member hits an ace, he or she gets a golf outing and a dinner in their honor. This past Thursday, the club was celebrating Reed Schmitt’s ace from earlier in the year when all hell broke loose in the best way possible.

For his outing, Schmitt bought hole-in-one insurance, so that the five golfers who hit it closest to the pin on the five par-3s would have a chance to hit one shot on the par-3 9th hole with an ace on the extra hole worth $1 million, according to Gary D’Amato of Wisconsin.Golf. 

While that little perk is cool enough, getting into the million-dollar shot proved to be a pretty stiff competition. Three men — Dan Olson, Keith Robel and Jon Rindt — all hit aces themselves during the course of the round to punch their tickets to the million-dollar shot.

Ted Anderson, a 7.1 handicap, earned a spot in the shootout via a shot to four feet on the par-3 5th hole to earn one of the two other shots.


Then, the story goes from the ridiculous to the sublime.

With the cameras rolling and a large gallery gathered around the 9th green, Anderson hit the shot of his life and watched as the ball trickled back towards the hole and in for the jackpot.

“I put a good swing on a six-iron,” Anderson said. “When I hit it, I thought, ‘That’s pretty good.’ It went behind the hole and started rolling backward and you could hear the crowd buzzing and then it goes in and the crowd goes nuts.”

One day. Four aces (while celebrating another ace). One million dollars. Incredible.