Retired Iron Worker Makes Two Holes-in-One After Cataract Surgery

Larry Sare plays golf five days week, works on his short game daily and hits balls two to three times a day at a local municipal course. What could be better than that – a hole-in-one when playing 18 with your buddies? Now getting a hole-in-one may be a rare event, but it’s not unusual. However, this avid golfer, who carries a 9.6 handicap, did experience something unusual at his local municipal course when it comes to holes-in-one.

But what separates this 71-year-old retired iron-worker’s golf tale from the “so what, he got a hole-in-one” category is how and when he got his two aces while playing in different foursomes each time at his home course in Covington, Ind. It all happened within a two-week span this spring following sequential procedures to remove cataracts from both eyes, replacing them with AcrySof® intra-ocular lenses (IOL).*

While playing in a foursome, Sare made the first of his two holes-in-one May 14 on 130-yard par 3 playing a 7-iron following the initial cataract procedure performed on his right eye four days earlier, May 9. Two weeks after, on May 23rd, the second surgery was performed. Now, after only two days, on May 25, the avid golfer, who didn’t start playing until in his 30s, cards his second ace hitting a driver on an uphill 175-yard par 3, playing closer to 210 yards while playing in a different foursome.

According to Golf Digest, the odds on making a hole in one from 150 yards are 80,000 to 1 and from 200 yards, 150,000 to 1. According to Hole-In-One, a golf promotion company, the odds of consecutive aces are nearly 156,250,000 to 1, or roughly the same chances as winning the Powerball lottery.

Those consecutive aces Sare made were actually numbers five and six he has had over his lifetime, making his first nearly 40 years ago. “The best hole-in-one I got,” says Sare, who admires Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, “Was a on a 160-yard par 3 when I hit it over the flag and backed it up into the hole. Back then we used balata ball and you could really spin ‘em.”

While no photograph was taken either day and Sare kept playing the ball he scored from his first hole-in-one, he did remember to take the ball out of play from his second round. River Crest Golf Club professional, J.W. Potter, attested both holes-in-one.

Fortunately, for Sare he carried hole-in-one insurance, which covered the customary “drinks are on me” tradition – but who thought he’d get two holes-in-one within a two-week span and leaving the hole- in-one insurance pot about half of what it would normally be?

* The AcrySof® IQ Intraocular Lenses (IOLs) are artificial lenses implanted in the eye of adult patients following cataract surgery. These lenses are designed to allow for clear distance vision. However, you will likely still need glasses for reading and for distance vision particularly if you already have astigmatism.