How Often is there a Hole-in-One on the PGA Tour?

In its simplest form, golf is a really easy game: you hit the golf ball with your club and get it into the hole. Anyone who has played the game, though, will be more than aware that it is one of the most frustrating sports that you can engage with. You can hit two shots that seem to be identical to one another as far as your concerned but get wildly different results when you see the ball go on its journey. That is just the amateur’s experience, so you can only imagine how annoying it must be for professionals who spend hours a day hitting balls either in competition or simply practicing, struggling to work out why they don’t win every time they play.

Given the skill of professional golfers and the distance that they can hit the ball, it is perhaps somewhat surprising that they don’t get a hole-in-one every time they play a par three. That, of course, will be down to all sorts of things, from the manner in which the course is set up to protect the hole through to the way that the weather is on any given day, to say nothing of the fact that the hole is incredibly small and the ball not much smaller. Whilst amateurs spend their lives hoping for a hole-in-one, professionals get them on a much more regular basis and the likes of the PGA Tour sees a fair amount of them go in over the course of a season.

Looking at the Data

In order to get a sense of how common a hole-in-one actually is, we are going to have a look at data from ten seasons’ worth of PGA tournaments. One thing we can tell you, though, is that the experience of a hole-in-one has become a lot more common in the modern era than it was in the past. In the 50 years between 1868 and 1918, for example, just six holes-in-one were recorded. More than that were recorded every year between 1966 and the present day, which shows the manner in which it is much more likely for a hole-in-one to be achieved nowadays than it ever was before, owing to all sorts of reasons.

We know, for example, that the equipment used by golfers nowadays makes it much more likely that they’ll be able to hit the ball further and with more accuracy. There is also the fact that there are a lot more PGA Tour events in the modern era than there were when golf as a sport was in its infancy, so that is important to bear in mind. Having said that, we can have a look at the ten seasons between 2014 and 2023 in order to get a sense of how many holes-in-one were scored in a year.

Something to bear in mind is that up to 2013, the PGA Tour season took place across a calendar year, however from 2013/14 the schedule became known as a wraparound season, similar to our football season, starting in late September or early October and continuing through to the following August or September when the Tour Championship finale was now played. As a result you might see a reference to the 2015 season, but this would actually be the 2014/15 season. This was in place until the 2022/23 season, reverting back to a calendar year from 2024. This meant that the 2022/23 season ran from September 2022 to November 2023, with some tournaments playing twice to accommodate this transition.

With all that in mind, lets look first at how many holes-in-one, or aces as they are sometimes known, in the ten seasons between 2013/14 and 2022/23.

The chart above shows that generally there are over 30 holes-in-one on the PGA Tour every year, with an average between 2014 and 2023 of 31.9 per year. The 2014/15 season had the most holes in one during this 10 season period with 41, with the fewest, just 17, in 2013/14 the previous year.

One consideration is that the number of tournaments fluctuates from year to year as tournaments are added, removed, or shifted in the calendar. Also, the 2022/23 season contained far more tournaments than average as the season switch back to the calendar year. To take this into account, we can also look at how often there is a hole-in-one scored.

This chart shows that there was indeed a high frequency of holes-in-one scored during 2015, with one sunk every 1.15 tournaments. However, the most frequently seen holes-in-one were found during 2020. During this year, many tournaments were cancelled or moved to later in the year due to the global health emergency. Also, those tournaments that did take place has either no spectators or vastly reduced numbers. During this year, a hole-in-one was scored every 1.03 tournaments, the closest value we’ve seen across our ten year to one scored every tournament on average. At the opposite end of the scale, in 2013/14 a hole-in-one was only scored every 2.65 tournaments

It is worth having a look at whether any particular year had a more even spread of tournaments that featured a hole-in-one compared to any other. With that in mind, here is how many tournaments featured at least one hole-in-one in each of the seasons that we’re looking at, bearing in mind that we’re looking at the season in total and not the calendar year necessarily:

It is fair to say that 2014/15 was clearly something of an outlier, with holes-in-one being scored at almost two-thirds of tournaments, five tournaments more than the next closest season. That might well be because the weather was good or for some other reason, but it is noteworthy all the same. Across the ten seasons between 2013/14 and 2022/23, 48.50% of tournaments, almost half of those played, witnessed at least one hole-in-one, which will have been brilliant for both the golfers and the watching crowds.

The 2014/15 Season

We know from the information above that 2014/15 was something of an outlier, seeing 41 holes-in-one go in across 31 of the 47 tournaments played during the season. Here is a more specific breakdown of the tournaments that were played and the holes-in-one that were achieved by the golfers in those tournaments:

PGA Tour Holes-In-One – 2014/15 Season

From the table above, we can see that there were actually ten tournaments that witnessed two holes-in-one, with a further 21 tournaments seeing a single hole-in-one. You might also be able to see that there were actually three players who scored a hole-in-one twice this season. Billy Hurley III got an ace in the opening tournament in October, the Frys.com Open (now the Fortinet Championship), following up with another in July at the Barbasol Championship. Argentinian golfer Andres Romero also scored his first hole-in-one in October, the week following Hurley III’s, at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. His second came at the Travelers Championship in June.

Incredibly, Brian Harman, who went on to win the Open Championship in 2023, not on scored two holes-in-one in the same tournament but on the same round. The Barclays (now the St. Jude Championship) was the first of the four FedEx Cup playoffs in 2015, and took place at the Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey. Harman started his final round on the Sunday badly, with bogies at the first and second. The American then got his first hole-in-one at the 183 yard par-3 third to get back on level par for the day. Harman got his second hole-in-one at the fourteenth hole, a par-3 over 218 yards. Despite his two incredible aces, Brian Harman finished the tournament tied for 30th place.

Another aspect we can look into is whether more holes-in one were scored at certain points in the year. The chart below tracks the holes-in-one scored as the season progressed.

Here we can see that there was quite an even spread throughout the season, though the six scored in July’s tournaments was the highest for any single month. Two were scored at the Greenbrier Classic at the start of the month but none the following week at the John Deere Classic. Next up was two tournaments in the same week – the Barbasol Championship, with a single hole-in-one, alongside the only ace scored at a major this season, at St Andrews during the Open Championship. Two further holes-in-one were scored at the Canadian Open at the end of the month.

Breaking it Down by Tournament

Now that we know how many holes-in-one have been scored over the ten season period in question, it is worth having a look at the individual tournaments. Are some events more suited to an ace being scored compared to others? Something to bear in mind is that some tournaments will change their name from year to year. This is because some tournaments will have different sponsors and therefore alter their official name accordingly. Below we have shown the current or latest name of the tournament.

It is also worth bearing in mind that tournaments often change which course they are played at, so there might not necessarily be a link between the fact that a tournament has a number of holes-in-one and the course it’s played at.

Here is a look at all the tournaments that saw a hole-in-one between the 2013/14 and 2022/23 seasons:

PGA Tour Holes-In-One by Tournament – 2013/14 to 2022/23

Tournament	Holes-In-One	Last Hole-In-One
World Wide Technology Championship	19	2023
The American Express (Desert Classic)	15	2022
Wyndham Championship	15	2022
Players Championship	12	2023
Travelers Championship	11	2023
Masters	10	2022
Phoenix Open	10	2023
Shriners Children’s Open	10	2023
RSM Classic	9	2023
Sanderson Farms Championship	9	2023
Genesis Invitational	8	2021
Sony Open in Hawaii	8	2023
U.S. Open	8	2023
Arnold Palmer Invitational	7	2023
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am	7	2023
Farmers Insurance Open	7	2023
Fortinet Championship	7	2020
Rocket Mortgage Classic	7	2023
WGC Championship	7	2021
Byron Nelson	6	2022
Corales Puntacana Championship	6	2023
Houston Open	6	2023
Memorial Tournament	6	2022
Barbasol Championship	5	2019
Charles Schwab Challenge	5	2023
CIMB Classic	5	2019
Greenbrier Classic	5	2020
Honda Classic	5	2020
HSBC Champions	5	2020
John Deere Classic	5	2022
Open Championship	5	2023
PGA Championship	5	2023
RBC Heritage	5	2023
St. Jude Championship	5	2023
Wells Fargo Championship	5	2023
BMW Championship	4	2022
Dell Technologies Championship	4	2017
St. Jude Classic	4	2018
Texas Open	4	2019
3M Open	3	2020
Puerto Rico Open	3	2021
The National	3	2015
Tour Championship	3	2021
Valspar Championship	3	2023
Workday Charity Open	3	2020
Zurich Classic	3	2016
Canadian Open	2	2015
CJ Cup	2	2023
Mexico Open	2	2022
Scottish Open	2	2023
WGC Invitational	2	2019
Palmetto Championship	1	2021
Tournament of Champions	1	2019

The table indicates that there is a clear leader at the top, the World Wide Technology Championship, with 19 holes-in-one during this ten season period. That event is followed by The American Express and the Wyndham Championship with 15, the Players Championship with 12 and the Travelers Championship with 11. Next on the list we have three tournaments with 10 holes-in-one, the Masters, the Phoenix Open and the Shriners Open.

With ten holes-in-one, the Masters has the most aces scored in this timeframe of any of the four major tournaments. We actually have a dedicated article on holes-in-one at the Masters which can be found here.

The World Wide Technology Championship

Having acknowledged that the World Wide Technology Championship is where you will have been more likely to see a hole-in-one scored than anywhere else, it is worth taking a closer look at the tournament. It has only been part of the schedule for the PGA Tour since 2007, making it one of the newer events, and it was the first regular PGA Tour event to be played in Mexico.

This tournament has had different titles over the years, staring life as the Mayakoba Golf Classic, becoming the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, switching back to the Mayakoba Classic and finally being known as the World Wide Technology Championship. Between 2007 and 2022, the tournament was played at the Mayakoba resort’s El Camaleón Golf Course in Playa del Carmen, which is around 50km to the south of Cancún. El Camaleón was one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour, which might go some way to explain the history of holes-in-one.

The course was designed by Australian Greg Norman, who has become CEO of the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour. With the Norman-LIV connection, Myakoba became one of the fixtures on the breakaway golf tour from 2023 and as a result the Worldwide Technology Championship moved 3,500km west to the El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, on the Baja California Peninsula.

First we’ll look at all the holes-in-one scored at El Camaleón during the World Wide Technology Championship between the first tournament played in 2007 and the final tournament there in 2022 (2022/23 season).

El Camaleón Holes-In-One – 2013/14 to 2022/23

There were a total of twenty holes-in-one at El Camaleón, the first of which was scored by Charles Howell in 2010. John Huh is the only player to score two holes-in-one at this tournament, doing so in 2014 and in 2021. Interestingly, no player won the event having scored a hole-in-one. The closest to becoming champion was Brain Harman who was runner up in 2022, having scored an ace in the second round.

In total, holes-in-one were scored in six different holes at the World Wide Technology Championship at El Camaleón. The most frequent was hole eight with six holes-in-one, followed by holes four and ten both with 5 holes-in-one. The only aces at holes one and seven where when the competition was played in February so the course layout may have changed when switching to November.

Even though the tournament shifted thousands of kilometres the other side of the country for the event in 2023, this first edition at El Cardonal has already yielded a hole-in-one.

El Cardonal Holes-In-One – 2023