The par-3 16th at Cypress Point is not what you’d call “ace-able.”
To be fair, few par-3s have golfers thinking about holing out, but the antepenultimate hole at Cypress Point is particularly averse to yielding 1s. Since 1945, according to a plaque at the club, just 25 players (including Bing Crosby in 1947!) have made an ace at the iconic 16, which from the back tees plays a daunting 230 yards over the churning Pacific.
Well, that was until earlier this month when Christian Clark, a freshman on the Southern Methodist University golf team, added his name to the list, a feat that not only was captured on camera but also caught the eye of the GOAT himself. “Amazing,” Tom Brady commented on Instagram.
And then…it happened again.
Less than two weeks later, another golfer, Jim Butz, stepped on to the vaunted 16th tee at Cypress — this time with driver in hand — and walked off the hole with a 1. And, yes, once again, the moment was documented on video. Check it out here:
This story could end here — did we mention Butz, who is now 60, also went to SMU? — and still be worth telling. But, remarkably, there’s another twist: in Butz’s group was the same member who had hosted Clark, meaning that member had witnessed two aces in 10 days on arguably the most famous par-3 in golf.
“Reuben, what do you have to say about that?” the member was asked by the video shooter when he arrived on the green.
“Highly unlikely,” Reuben said.
A few moments later, Reuben was asked, “So you’ve seen two holes-in-one in 10 days on this hole?”
“Correct.”
“Had you ever seen a hole-in-one on this hole?”
“I’d never seen one period,” Reuben said, cracking up his group.
Cypress Point is ranked No. 2 in GOLF’s latest ranking of the Top 100 Courses in the U.S. In GOLF architecture editor Ran Morrissett’s description of the course, he called 16 “the game’s most dramatic and photographed hole.”
Fortunately, it is also one of the most videoed.