You may catch Carmel-by-the-Sea resident Jeff Smith buying up lottery tickets somewhere.
After all, the 64-year-old has had a hot hand this year.
Smith, who carries an 8.3 Handicap Index, has four hole-in-ones this year alone at his home club, TPC Monterey at Pasadera.
Here’s a closer look at Smith’s incredible four aces this year:
| Date | Hole | Distance | Club |
|----------------|---------|----------|-----------|
| January 11, 2025 | #14 | 185 yards | 5-hybrid |
| March 9, 2025 | #8 | 137 yards | 9-iron |
| July 15, 2025 | #3 | 142 yards | 9-iron |
| September 19, 2025 | #14 | 190 yards | 4-hybrid |
The quartet of aces came two years after Smith made his first hole-in-one, also at TPC Monterey at Pasadera.
“I think, along with luck, is that my game has just improved quite a bit,” Smith said of his good fortune. “I’m just playing better.”
According to the National Hole-In-One Registry, the odds of an amateur player making an ace are about 1 in 12,500. Four in one year? The odds go to a ho-hum 1 in 2.4 trillion.
For Smith, the most exciting of the four was his most recent in September.
“That was the only one of the four where I discovered myself that I had made an ace after finding the ball in the cup” Smith said. “The others, it was either myself or someone else who saw it go in.”