The hole-in-one prizes on the European Tour are becoming outlandish. Not content with tractors and space flights and Miguel Angel Jimenez’ 288 bottles of beer last week in Spain, there are two cars up for grabs this year at the BMW PGA Championship.
Sadly for Scotland’s Craig Lee, the £106,000 BMW i8 is the prize at the 14th, the £60,000 M4 is at the 10th, and the Stirling pro’s ace, an eight-iron from 151 yards, came at Wentworth’s second.
If that wasn’t bad enough, when Lee reached the 8th tee he saw Andrew “Beef” Johnson’s tee shot at the tenth drop into the hole, thereby winning the Englishman the keys to the M4.
“All I’m getting is the high fives I got from my playing partners, but they were pretty welcome,” said Lee, who has six holes-in-one in his life but never before while playing on tour.
“I got a bottle of malt for an ace at Skibo Castle once, that’s the only thing. You pretty much know when there’s no car parked behind the tee that you’re not getting anything.”
That’s not always been the case at the second on the West Course, where arguably the most lucrative hole-in-one prize in history was won by Japan’s Isao Aoki at the 1979 World Matchplay. Aoki got a house at Gleneagles, worth £40,000 at the time and probably around £500,000 now, plus a further £15,000 to furnish it.
Johnson ran from the tee after his ace for a celebratory chest-bump with a friend in the galleries. It wasn’t last year’s Scottish Hydro Challenge winner’s first big hole-in-one prize either he got 168 bottles of champagne for a hole-in-one at the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart a few years back.
Jimenez nearly pulled off a third hole-in-one on the day, ending up a cigar-length away from aceing the 14th and winning BMW’s top marque of the moment.
“Almost my tenth hole-in-one,” said the 51-year-old former champion after he had completed his customarily well-crafted 68 to lie just two off the lead. “It is definitely coming soon.”