Staff WriterThere are golfing stories, there are clubhouse stories, and then there is the sort of ace story that makes grown men stare into a hole as if it has just started speaking fluent Latin. Rob Davis and David Lewis, friends for more than 30 years, have produced one of those rare little miracles the game occasionally throws up to keep us all from selling the clubs and taking up birdwatching.
Two Friends, One Famous Links And A Moment Beyond Belief
Playing together at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, the long-time friends managed something so unlikely it sounds less like sport and more like a clerical error in the laws of probability.
Davis, 67, and Lewis, 64, both made a hole-in-one on the same par-3 15th at Hoylake. The estimated odds? A thoroughly impolite 17 million to one.
The flag was tucked at the back of the 107-yard hole. Davis, playing off 10.8, went first with a pitching wedge and found the cup for his first-ever ace. Moments later, Lewis, a 7.1-handicapper, stood over the same club, took his turn, and followed him in.
Golf, that most vindictive of parlour games, had apparently decided to be generous for once.
The Moment Neither Man Could Quite See
The best part is that neither player had the full cinematic reveal from the tee. No bouncing ball in slow motion. No theatrical final roll. No immediate eruption. Royal Liverpool’s green complex kept the secret to itself.
Rob, who plays off 10.8, admitted he didn’t initially realise what had happened: “We knew my shot had hit the flag, but because of the green’s topography we couldn’t see the base of the pin. I honestly thought it had bounced off into the fringe, so I wasn’t that excited at first. David’s looked close too, but again, we couldn’t see the finish.
“When we walked up and saw no balls on the green, one of our playing partners told us to go to the hole together. Seeing both balls in there was surreal. We just shook hands and tried to take it all in.”
That is probably the correct reaction. Anything more dramatic risks looking rehearsed. Anything less would suggest a worrying lack of pulse.
A Spike Bar Story With Actual Evidence
Naturally, the celebrations moved to the Spike Bar, because golf has its protocols and many of them involve buying drinks after doing something preposterously expensive in social terms.
The pair bought drinks for fellow golfers before heading to the Professional Shop, where Mike Jones and his team were told the news. Scorecards and photographs were required immediately, partly as evidence and partly because this is exactly the sort of thing a golf club’s social pages were invented for.
“The celebrations continued in the Spike Bar, where the pair bought drinks for fellow golfers before heading to the Professional Shop to share the news with Mike Jones and his team. “They wanted the photos and scorecards straight away so they could share it on the club’s pages,” Rob said.
David Lewis Was Not Losing This Ball
For Lewis, this was not his first brush with golfing immortality. He had previously made a hole-in-one on the 4th at Hoylake around 12 years ago. That one, however, came with a small but painful administrative failure: he did not retire the ball.
“I had one about 12 years ago but forgot to change the ball and promptly hit it into the gorse, never to be seen again. I wasn’t making that mistake this time!”
There speaks a man who has learned one of golf’s harsher lessons. The game gives rarely, and when it does, you remove the evidence before the next tee shot ruins the archive.
Rob, meanwhile, has a more domestic question to solve.
Rob added: “I haven’t decided how to mount the ball yet – I’ll need to check with David before we get something done!”
A shared display seems only fair. Two balls, one hole, three decades of friendship and a story that will survive every winter dinner, captain’s evening and slightly over-served retelling from now until kingdom come.
Why This Royal Liverpool Ace Double Feels So Special
The setting matters. Royal Liverpool is not just another line on a scorecard. Hoylake is one of golf’s great links stages, a place of history, wind, rumpled ground and quiet menace. It is the sort of course where a good shot is never entirely guaranteed a good fate, and a poor one can end up in places best described as botanically hostile.
That both players used pitching wedges, on the same 107-yard par-3, in the same group, and both found the bottom of the cup is almost offensively neat. Golf rarely writes with that much symmetry. Usually it prefers footnotes involving plugged lies and emotional damage.
England Golf Championships Director James Crampton said: “Some people go their whole lives without getting a hole-in-one. To achieve one, alongside one of your friends, on the same hole, is nothing short of extraordinary, as the odds suggest – but it’s a moment that these golfers will cherish for the rest of their lives.”
He is right, of course. Some golfers never get near an ace. Others spend decades waiting for the sound, the bounce, the little flash of disbelief around the green.
Rob Davis and David Lewis got to share it.
The rest of us get the story, which is almost as good — provided we are not the ones buying the drinks.
