LAST UPDATE | 5 Apr 2023
SÉAMUS POWER WILL have a spring in his step on his way to the first tee at The Masters proper on Thursday after signing off from Wednesday’s Par 3 contest in extraordinary fashion.
The Waterford man recorded back-to-back holes-in-one on the final two holes of Augusta National’s par-3 course, a feat only achieved twice before in the competition’s 63-year history (by Claude Harmon in 1968 and Toshi Ozawa in 2002).
The first ace of the day!@Power4Seamus cards a 1️⃣ at the Par 3 Contest #theMasters pic.twitter.com/QWSs4mR3Fq
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 5, 2023
BACK-TO-BACK!@Power4Seamus makes another ace at the Par 3 Contest #theMasters pic.twitter.com/kdbCji8dTp
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 5, 2023
“It’s a dream come true”, said Power. “Obviously to get one was special, but to get the second one was a bit surreal. It was an absolute blast out there.
“I hit a sand wedge on eight. Probably landed 30 feet behind it and spun back, and it was looking like it was going to be close, and it dropped in, and similar on nine, I slightly pulled it and it kicked to the right and spun back in, so yeah, very lucky obviously. Great.
Power counts his holes-in-one: he had 14 up to today. It also primes him for tomorrow’s opening round: he tees off at 2.48pm tomorrow Irish time, playing alongisde pst champion Bubba Watson and Argentina amateur Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira.
Watson, ironically, registered an ace in the par-3 contest, with Scottie Scheffler the only other player to ace, his coming on the final hole.
“It’s obviously such a special tradition here on a Wednesday. Being able to share it with my brother out there, that was probably the best part. Yeah, I don’t know whether it carries into tomorrow, but it’s certainly a lifelong memory that I’ll treasure for a long time:”
Power became the fifth Irish golfer to record a hole-in-one in the contest after Darren Clarke (2001), Pádraig Harrington (2006), Graeme McDowell (2010) and Shane Lowry (2019).
Harrington has won the competition a record three times but no player has ever won both the Par 3 contest and The Masters itself in the same year. The man aiming to break the curse this year is Tom Hoge, who won the contest by one shot, clear of Bubba Watson and Kurt Kitayama.
Power did not post a card on Wednesday but will grab most of the headlines for his spectacular finish.
With reporting by Gavin Cooney
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