HOLES in one are not as rare as many people think but two in one competition is very unusual at club level.

How much rarer when they are achieved by two people playing in the same four ball and within 15 minutes of each other?

Such a feat was royally celebrated with glasses of black velvet by over 40 of the senior members of Thornbury Golf Club after their recent Greensomes competition.

Peter Dawes had holed his tee shot on the 12th hole to make it three aces in his career.

Just two holes later, at the next par three, Michael Stone clattered the flag for nearby players to hear and down that one went as well.

Who says persistence does not pay off? In 1992, Stone was one of the founding committee members of Thornbury Golf Club and after playing golf for 68 years this was his first hole-in-one.

To mark the event Rex Leeson, a founder member of the seniors section, is mounting Stone’s ball on the handle of a walking stick as a memento.

The same cannot be done with Dawes’s ball as his playing partner Ken Belcher struck it into the lake later in the round.

The competition was won by Leeson and Colin Williams-Locke with a fine 10 under par round of 61, closely followed by Bill Baker and Malcolm Rowe (62) and Mike Robinson and John Jackson (63).