Golf: miraculous hat trick

A hole-in-one is great. Three in 37 days is downright miraculous. Yet this is the real feat recently achieved by Eric Busque at the Royal Laurentien golf club. He has outsmarted the gods of mathematics and those of golf with his “magic stick”, a hybrid 6, which he keeps preciously.

His cards of May 19, June 23 and June 25 are all marked with an ace in the same place: the 8^e pennant. In the new configuration of the course located at Saint-Faustin – Lac-Carré in the Laurentians, it is now a par 3 of 165 yards.

What are the probabilities of succeeding such a miracle? According to statistics, they amount to one chance in … 19.5 trillion!

Considering that the average golfer has a one in 12,500 chance of hitting a hole at once, the odds have to be multiplied.

Blessing

At the same date last year, Ginette Choquette had achieved this feat at the Saint-Jean Golf Club. The Journal then questioned an expert.

“In the calculation, we consider that each success is independent. The probabilities multiply, explained the mathematician and statistician Maxime Guy. To do this in a month is very impressive. The odds are extremely low. There are a lot of 0’s in the result. “

Busque, a 57-year-old golfer with a handicap index of 10, was therefore blessed by the gods. “That it is the same hole, the same stick and done in five weeks, it’s completely crazy stiff,” exclaimed the man who has been a member of the Royal Laurentien since its inauguration in 1989.

“Between 130 and 165 yards, I always have the same stick in my hands. Guys who dare to bet with me now want to steal it or break it, laughed the man who organizes friendly leagues at the golf club.

Since his third hole in a row, it’s barely if his opponents do not curse them, his favorite stick and him, with each of his passages to the eighth. The retiree who worked in the regional press of the Laurentians pushes the little white ball almost every day of the week. At the end of the season, he should compile nearly 125 rounds.

Until luck suddenly hit him on May 19, Busque had managed just one ace. It was the third Royal Laurentien pennant in 2009. He had never seen the ball fall into the cup.

euphoria

In his three recent successes in front of witnesses, the 50-year-old has gone through the whole gamut of emotions. In his series premiere on May 19, he only knew once near the pennant that his ball was deep in the hole. Euphoric, he celebrated with his playmates Michel Guy, Christian Côté and Daniel Pauzé.

“In the second, it was really a great shot. The ball fell about seven feet from the hole, jumped and disappeared directly into the cut. On the third, two days later, I saw it roll towards the cup and fall into it like a ripe fruit. I let out a cry of death, said the original Beauceron, proud of his feat.

“That day, I asked my wife to buy lottery tickets at the grocery store. And on my way home, I stopped to buy some too. I just have to check if I won. ”

♦ By comparison, there is an estimated 1 in 14 million chance of winning the 6/49 jackpot, while, according to Environment Canada, there is a little less than 1 in a million chance of being struck by lightning.

♦ In the pros, the probability of a hole-in-one is one in 3000. In the history of the PGA Tour, no golfer has scored three aces in the same season in calendar events. .