- November 27, 2024
Loading
Last year, I remember listening to an older radio sports personality complain about not scoring a hole-in-one in all of his years as a golfer. He’d be livid to hear about the Brooks sisters from Ormond Beach.
What seemed like a regular golf outing for Spruce Creek senior Natalie Brooks, 16, on Saturday, July 18, on the LPGA Jones course, turned out to be a historical one, when she approached the third hole. There, Brooks only needed one shot to reach the 4.25-inch hole on the green.
“I was kind of shocked,” she said. “I never thought that would happen to me so fast or out there.”
Brooks, who has been playing since she was 8 years old, has never made an albatross or an eagle; she’s only made birdies up until her recent triumph.
Just two weeks later, she and her younger sister, Sarah, 15, a sophomore, were playing a round on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at Crane Lakes. This time, it was Sarah’s turn to make the personal golf history that so many have tried to pull off. On the second hole, with Natalie looking on, Sarah put her first ball in the air, and they both watched it drop and roll into the hole.
“We were both really shocked because she doesn’t play as much as I do, so it was nice to see that,” Natalie Brooks said.
“It felt really good, but it was surprising,” Sarah Brooks said. “I wasn’t hitting it really well on the range that day, so when we went out and played, I didn’t think I would hit it that good.”
In less than a month, two teenage sisters became a part of the 1.5% of golfers who record a hole-in-one each year, according to www.nationalholeinoneregistry.com. It also says that just 16% of those are made by female golfers, 55 years being the average age.
There is a reason the site doesn’t have odds for teenage sisters making holes-in-one in the span of three weeks because that number would probably rival the odds of me beating a professional golfer, seeing that I’ve never parred any holes.