When Marian Wilke finished the sixth hole in her round at Canyon Mesa Country Club on June 17, she had never hit a hole-in-one in her many years playing golf. The same was true for her friend and playing partner that day, Carole Weinhardt. In a few short minutes, things changed.

Wilke teed off first on the 60-yard Par 3, hitting a wedge. As a veteran of the course, Wilke knew to play the shot to the right part of the green and let the slope take the ball toward the hole. She hit the ball exactly where she wanted it and got the perfect roll. The ball finally came to rest in the cup, giving Wilke her first hole-in-one in 50 years of playing golf.

“It got closer and closer and finally it just disappeared,” Wilke said. “There are apartments all around that hole. There was a guy on his deck, he saw it and the greenskeeper was there and he saw it. So we had lots of witnesses. You’re mostly speechless and all of a sudden you start screaming.”

As a general rule, following a hole-in-one is not an enviable spot for a golfer. But Weinhardt proved that sometimes, rules are meant to be broken.

Weinhardt’s tee shot was a near instant replay of Wilke’s. She hit her shot to the right part of the green and the ball rode the slope down toward the hole. Like Wilke’s, the ball wouldn’t stop until it was in the hole, the first hole-in-one for Weinhardt in her 25 years of golfing.

“It had the same trajectory. We’re watching it and I’m thinking, they’ve got the noodles in the hole now so mine could have gotten knocked out,” Weinhardt remembered. “Then it went in and there were two balls in there.”

“There was a guy sitting out on his patio and he said ‘way to go,’” Wilke added. “Then he went inside and heard us screaming again. And he came out and said, ‘Don’t tell me, you made another one?’”

According to Liveabout.com, the odds of a professional golfer acing a given hole are 2,500-to-1 while low handicap amateurs are 5,000-to-1. For regular amateurs — like Wilke and Weinhardt — the odds go to 12,500-to-1. But as much as the odds were defied when Wilke made her ace, it paled in comparison to what happened when Weinhardt stepped up to the tee. For two amateur golfers to ace the same hole, the odds are estimated at 26 million-to-1.

When the round was over, Wilke and Weinhardt decided to break the news in a fun way to Willie Darke, head pro at Canyon Mesa. With Weinhardt lagging behind, Wilke walked in first and told Darke of her hole-in-one. Darke was excited and ready to mark Wilke’s achievement with a plaque in the pro shop when Weindardt came in and told Darke that two plaque’s would be needed.
“He was astounded,” Wilke noted. “He said, ‘I’ve never heard of that. That’s never happened.’”

It’s typically custom for a golfer making a hole-in-one to buy a round for his or her group when a round is over. In normal circumstances, Wilke and Weinhardt’s situation might have left the two with an odd — yet desirable —question to answer. Who buys the drinks when two golfers hit a hole-in-one in the same round, let alone on the same hole?

Given the pandemic and that this round was completed just after 9 a.m., that didn’t become much of an issue. But the pair, along with playing partners Sally Elliott and Vicki Buehler, did find a time to mark the occasion later in the day.
“We did text them later and said, ‘Hey, would you guys be comfortable coming over at around 5?’” Weinhardt said. “So we did celebrate later.”

“And I brought a very good bottle of wine,” Wilke added.