‘Perfection’: South Korea’s Kim Si-woo makes historic 238-yard ace on one of the Open’s most menacing holes
CNN
It had been a relatively unremarkable Open Championship for Kim Si-woo as he stepped up to Royal Troon’s notorious penultimate tee on Saturday. One perfect thump of his three-iron later, the South Korean made history.
It had been a relatively unremarkable Open Championship for Kim Si-woo as he stepped up to Royal Troon’s notorious penultimate tee on Saturday. One perfect thump of his three-iron later, the South Korean made history. The four-time PGA Tour winner struck the first hole-in-one ever recorded on the 17th hole during the major at the fabled Scottish course, acing from 238 yards to light up the end of his third round. Nicknamed “Rabbit”, the par-three has garnered a reputation for being one of the course’s most menacing challenges across the 10 Opens hosted at Royal Troon since 1923. Playing as the sixth hardest hole during the second round, a sharply sloping green guarded by four deep bunkers makes leaving with par “gold,” according to tournament organizers. That was more than Si-woo had managed before Saturday, having double bogeyed and bogeyed the 17th hole across his opening two rounds. Imagine his shock then, when the shrieks of the crowds gathered by the green rippled back up the fairway. “I went back to the bag and there were people yelling at me … I didn’t realize the ball had gone in,” Si-woo later told reporters.
