Four Cumbrian brothers achieve amazing golfing feat

Four brothers from Cumbria have all hit a hole-in-one in the last three years. It is thought this is the first time this has ever happened in the UK.

It is thought the chances of it happening are about a billion-to-one.

Three of the four hole-in-ones occurred this year.

Rodney, 67, Derek, 65 and Robert, 76, who are all members of Appleby Golf Club, and Gerald, Gate, 69, all live within 15 miles of each other and all began playing golf about 30 years ago.

In 2013 Rodney became the first of them to get a hole-in-one, at Appleby’s 10th hole.

Rodney

This May retired builder Derek scored his own hole-in-one while playing the 16th hole of the Bardot Trophy competition at Bedale Golf Club, in North Yorkshire.

A month later retired farm worker Robert had one of his very own, playing the 15th hole at Appleby during the President’s Prize competition.

And then retired postman Gerald, normally a member at Penrith Golf Club, completed the siblings’ amazing feat on the 17th hole at Appleby.

Gerald

Robert was awarded a Hugo Boss watch for his hole-in-one as it was in a handicap qualifying competition and published by golfing website HowDidiDo.

Father-of-two Gerald said: “I wonder what sort of odds we would have got on all four of us brothers doing this?

“After all many golfers go a lifetime without managing it!

Robert

“Afterwards we each put a bottle of whisky on the clubhouse bar so fellow golfers could help us celebrate what we had done which is the tradition.”

He added: “We all played cricket together in the early days and now we play golf together.

“I couldn’t believe it when Derek and Robert matched Rodney and I thought I was going to be the odd one out.

“Then it happened for me and I made up the foursome. It’s been quite astonishing.”

Delighted Derek said: “We thought that for three of us to get holes-in-one within five weeks of each other was just a bit interesting!

“We all started playing golf together about 30 years ago and we get together now and again to play weekends away.”

Derek

Experts claim that the odds of an ‘average golfer’ making a hole-in-one are 12,500 to 1 – while for a tour professional it is 2,500 to 1.

In 1931 four brothers from Minnesota achieved the feat, but it is not thought it has ever happened in the UK before.