Bellmore Resident Notches Hole-in-One for SUNY Farmingdale

Depending on the source and circumstance, making a hole-in-one during a leisure round of golf can range from 50,000 to 1, to 15,000 to 1.  But making two aces in two days? 

Put it this way, you’d have a better chance of landing Halle Berre as your prom date. 

Well Last week, two Farmingdale State College golfers defied the odds and made history during the NCAA Men’s 2011 Division III Golf Championships held at Grandover Resort in Greensboro, N.C.

On Tuesday May 10, freshman Rich Kelly, of Oceanside, fired a nine iron into the 125-yard par-3 15th hole on the West Course.  The ball landed a mere three feet past the hole and spun back into the cup for his first ever hole-in-one.  

But wait, that’s only half of it. 

The next day, Kelly’s teammate Adam Larkin, of Bellmore, took a pitching wedge to the 125-yard par 3 12th on the East Course, which was also playing about 125 yards.  Taking advice from his coach Tom Azzara and a page from Kelly’s book, Larkin landed the ball 10 feet past the pin and let it roll back down into the hole.  It was his second ace.  

"My coach said to aim it a little right and it might trickle down to the hole,” Larkin told reporters.

Azzara said these were the first hole-in-ones at the DIII Nationals in 12 years and believed to be the first time two teammates did it at the same DIII national tournament.  

"This is my 11th year and we have had one hole-in-one in that time until now," Azzara told reporters. "I don't think it will happen again in my lifetime."

In a successful effort to steal some of the thunder his teammates were getting, freshman John Haining quipped to a reporter, “"We only practice holes-in-one.  We don't do anything else."