Rarest of all birds: Nationwide player makes hole-in-one on par 4

• By Ryan Ballengee
• Sep 4, 2011 3:22 PM ET

At the Nationwide Tour’s Mylan Classic on Sunday, Rahil Gangjee made an ace on a par 4 at Southpointe Golf Club. Playing the par-4 15th hole, Gangjee holed out from 316 yards.

Gangjee explained that he was playing a cut to the green and when the ball landed, the bounce straightened it out on a path directly to the cup. He didn’t see it drop, but knew when the crowd went ballistic.

“I wasn’t playing that great and the other day when the tee was up I was on the edge of the green so today I thought I could go for it,” said Gangjee. “I was just trying to get it on the green, that was it. When it’s a driveable hole, you think you can get it close and maybe make eagle but a hole-in-one, nobody thinks about that.”

At that point in the round, Gangjee had been 1 over. The albatross got him to 2 under, finishing with another bogey to shoot 1-under 70.

This is not the first such hole-out on the Nationwide Tour, though. Chip Beck and Richard S. Johnson have done so as well, Beck doing it with a driver at the 315-yard ninth hole in the first round of the 2003 Omaha Classic. Johnson did so at the 347-yard 15th hole in the final round of the Michael Hill New Zealand Open in 2009.