Queenstown teen Jack Gallie can add his name to golfing — and the family — history books.
At Monday’s Arrowtown Futures Open, held at the Arrowtown golf course, Jack, who turned 16 yesterday, made an albatross — or three strokes under par — on the 433 metre par 5 first hole.
An extremely rare feat, only a handful of golfers have ever achieved an albatross and, according to some statisticians, the odds of making one are about six million to one.
Incredibly, Jack’s achievement came in his second competition — and, even more remarkably, he’s now the third generation of his family to have scored one.
His dad, Millbrook Resort golf pro Ben Gallie, says he made one 20-odd years ago, on the 14th hole at Dunedin’s St Clair, while Jack’s grandad, Michael Fleck, scored a hole-in-one on a par 4 in Hamilton about six months ago, which is essentially the same thing.
Jack’s achievement, Ben says, is ‘‘pretty ridiculous’’ when you consider Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy haven’t made one yet.
The teenager picked up golf clubs when he was about five, but only started taking the sport more seriously in the past couple of years, and says the enormity of the shot took a bit to sink in.
‘‘I didn’t really expect it — I was expecting to see the ball on the green and then it disappeared and I was like, ‘wow’.
‘‘It took me a minute for it to hit me about what had actually happened and how rare it was.
‘‘My brother [Toby, 14] was watching from the other hole, because he was playing in front of me, and then we were all just like high-fiving each other.
‘‘[I’ve] never come close to something like this before — not a hole-in-one, not close to any thing else.’’
Ben says Jack’s sister Rose, 11, was caddying for him for the first time, ‘‘so she was the lucky charm’’.
To add to the drama, Dunedin’s Jackson Smith — playing in the same group as Jack — scored a hole-in-one on the 153m par 3 10th hole on the same day, the odds of which are 75 billion to one.
