For the average recreational golfer, the commonly quoted odds of making a hole-in-one are about 12,500 to 1. For an albatross, or double eagle — a 2 on a par 5 — it’s about 6 million to 1.
How about an ace. . .
. . . and two albatross .
. . . in the span of just four rounds?
These odds are 1 in 14.5 quadrillionaccording to a calculation, which we will explain in a moment.
In other words, virtually impossible Yet – you guessed it – it happened.
Enter Tyler Darling, a 45-year-old Vermonter with a 5.8 handicap rating. Darling, who comes from Irasburg, just south of the Canadian border, plays in a men’s league at Orleans Country Clubwhere he has been a member for 25 years. As the owner of a log-home construction company, Darling generally arranges his schedule to work a half-day on Tuesdays so he can play a warm-up 18 before the men’s league game in the evening.
Darling’s first light-in-a-bottle moment came on Tuesday, August 25, when he hit an 8-iron on the 157-yard par-3 3rd hole at Orleans CC. The ball landed just past the hole, and returned to the rim. When Darling turned his back, the ball disappeared for an ace – just the second of Darling’s life. The first came during the Covid pandemic in 2020, when there was no one around to celebrate. This time, Darling had two witnesses and a clubhouse full of celebrants.
“It was right before the men’s league, the course was busy,” Darling said. “They used to make insurance a hole in one, but they don’t anymore.
Darling happily covered the $387 bar tab.
Darling played Orleans again a few days later, then returned on Tuesday, September 1, with the same playing partners as the previous week. On the 11th hole, a 485-yard par-5, Darling, a long bomber, hit his drive about 300 yards. With 187 left at the pin, he ripped a 7 iron and felt good about the direction of the ball. He never saw it finished, however, due to an overgrowth on the fairway obscuring the landing area.
After a search for Darling’s ball around the green came up empty, the group checked one last place: the bottom of the hole. Bingo. A 2 on a par-5 – Darling’s first albatross.
But it wouldn’t be the last.
On Tuesday, September 8, two weeks after his ace and a week after his albatross, Darling returned to Orleans for a men’s match. On the 450-yard par-5 4th, he smoked a drive, leaving 120 yards to the pin.
With a gap wedge in hand – yes, more magic. His ball found the hole for another albatross. Once, Darling did not see the hole, because the green was elevated, but he had a witness in his group.
Darling’s success was posted on Orleans’ Facebook page where many commenters encouraged him to invest in lottery tickets.
“I didn’t play that game,” Darling said with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I used it all.”
Courtesy of Tyler Darling
Darling’s four-round sorcery would make Jordan Spieth blush. A number-loving friend of Darling’s, Peter Laferriere, calculated the odds of Darling’s heroics, and shared the math with GOLF.com via email:
To find the probability of these three distinct cuts happening over a short timeline, sports probability models use a Binomial Probability Formula distributed over the specific opportunities (trials) available in a typical fortnight of play. Assuming a very active schedule of 6 rounds of golf in these two weeks, a golfer faces exactly 24 par-3 opportunities and 24 par-5 opportunities.
The binomial formula: P(k; n, p) = n!/k!(nk)! Å~ pk Å~ (1-p)nk
Where n is the number of trials, k is the number of successes, and p is the probability of a hit.
1. Probability of 1+ Hole-In-One: Calculated on a basis of 1 in 12,500 over 24 trials.
2. Odds of 2+ Albatrosses: Calculated at a baseline of 1 in 6,000,000 over 24 trials.
3. The Compounded Odds: Multiply these odds frames together over the 14 day window fields a cumulative total of about 1 in 14.5 quadrillion (14,500,000,000,000,000 to 1).
To put that number in perspective, Darling’s streak is 42 million times rarer than winning the Mega Millions lottery jackpot. Although Darling is an elite, low-handicap scratch player (which lowers the individual albatross base to 1 in a million), the odds on this particular fortnight stand at an incredible 410 billion to 1.
GOLF.com has not independently confirmed Laferriere’s number crunching, but can confirm that the odds are lonnnng.
So, what’s left for Darling to tick off his list, other than maybe a trip to Vegas?
“I’ve never hit a par-4 on the second shot,” Darling said.
Give it a week or two.
