Two in a row Sunday: Penrhos Park couple defy star odds with double ace – Golf News
The monthly award at the glamorous Ceredigion club turned into a once-in-a-lifetime event as Simon Edwards and Jamie Bethell both went head-to-head on the same morning – something statisticians suggest should never happen at all.
Every club golfer carries the same silent desire somewhere in the back of their bag: one day, on one hole, the ball will come off the clubface, fly true, ride gracefully and disappear into the cup. For many, that day never comes. At Penrhos Park Golf Club on Sunday 26th April, it came twice – in the same tournament, the next morning, before the bacon rolls cooled in the clubhouse.
A morning that rewrote the possibilities
The event was the first monthly honor of the new golf season, typically a chance for members to shake off the rust and post a tag early for next year. Instead, it was one of the most memorable mornings in recent history Penrhos Park championship course.
Simon ‘Grox’ Edwards hit first in the record books, hitting his tee shot on the par-three 11th. It wasn’t long before fellow member Jamie Bethell responded in kind, getting a low-cup spot off the tee at 5. Two members. Two aces. One competition. One amazing clubhouse.
Word traveled quickly through Penrhos Park, as it always does when something unusual happens between the ropes. By the time the final teams came out on the 18th, the conversation had moved from medal points and stableford points to one, slightly unbelievable question: Does that really just happen?
The numbers behind the miracle
To understand how unusual the morning was, it helps to look at the cold statistics. A study of junior golfers suggests that the average club player makes a hole in the middle about once every 12,500 par-three shots. That number already sounds pathetic, but it gets even worse when you translate it to rounds played.
A typical club member plays 20 full rounds a year, with three divisions each, hitting up to 80 short-hole shots in a season. At that rate, one crater would be expected to occur – on average – once every 150 years or so. Which is to say: for the vast majority of golfers, he never has.
The odds of two members of the same club, on the same medal of the month, both posting an ace, rise to a level that bookies rarely bother to quote. It’s the kind of mathematical curiosity that buys drinks before one can fully do the math.
It’s tasting club time
What makes the story so “club golf” is that this wasn’t a televised event, a big tournament moment or a tour pro reading a yard-to-millimeter book. It was two novice golfers, playing the course they know best, on a Sunday morning in late April, doing something mathematicians say should not have happened.
Penrhos Park, a parkland in the heart of Ceredigion, has long been a popular destination on the golf course in west Wales. The course is known for its friendly atmosphere and membership that takes its monthly awards seriously without losing sight of why they took up the game in the first place. Mornings like this are exactly what you do.
The club’s tradition of holes-in-one – like most clubs, there are a few – was tested in style on Sunday. Two names on the honor roll. Two trips around the bar. And on Sunday mornings that will be recounted, with the decorations growing a little each time, for years to come.
A memory of the season
For Simon Edwards and Jamie Bethell, the rest of the 2026 season can take any shape you like. Birds will come and go, three putts will be cursed, and the weather will, this is Wales, do whatever it likes. But we will never forget the morning they entered the recording room as men who beat odds of more than a million to one.
For everyone at Penrhos Park, it’s a reminder of why we keep coming together. The picture of a lifetime always turns once – and occasionally, from time to time, it comes in pairs.
