Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Beating Odds of 17 Million to 1!

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

An Auckland father and son nailed back-to-back hole-in-ones—yes, on consecutive shots. We spoke to the dad about the once-in-a-lifetime moment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The John O'Bannon Megan podcast. Thanks to Dilma. Goodness really does taste great. Dilma making the world a better tea. Hello Jimbo. How are you? I'm great. Thanks.

How are you? We're doing all right. Thanks so much for taking time out of your, yeah, you guys are on vacation and you're talking to the media. So thank you. Yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're having a great time here in Scotland right now. And, uh, just wrapping it up. We're at the tail end of our trip.

It's, it's been wonderful. Now, uh, is this a world first, what you've achieved Jim? You know, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I know I've, I've heard a couple of stories in the last 72 hours of, of a couple of, uh, father, son, or parent, child, uh, hole in ones on the same day, same hole, uh, but both on par threes that I've heard, but it might be. So it's pretty crazy. So it is incredible.

So you're obviously a very keen golfer and you've had, you've had a couple of hole in ones before, right? I have. I've been very, very, very fortunate, very lucky, plenty of reps. I do play a fair bit. So a few opportunities and yeah, yeah, I've had a few. So you're playing a course in Scotland with your sons, you're over there, you hit the ball and you're like, at what stage did you think, well, that might be a hole in one?

Well so we actually didn't see it go in the hole. We knew it was going to be very good, but didn't actually see it drop. Didn't see his drop either. But we got up to the green and my other son hit a second shot onto the green and there was only one ball there We started looking around on the edge like in the rough and then and then my my younger son who's 15 Eric Walked up and he's like, oh there are two right here. And we said, what do you mean? Is it right here? There's two in the hole Like we said something I can't say out loud on radio There are two in the hole. Wow.

We said something I can't say out loud on the radio and we walked over and we looked at it and we just went ballistic. We went nuts. It was incredible. It was so surreal. Can we reenact it and I'll see if I can beep in real time. Okay?

You just say what you say and I'll try and beep it. Okay, here we go. Three, two, one. I said, what the fuck? Are you kidding me? I think we got there. We got it. We got it. Kind of. It is incredible. I mean, this is your son's first hole in one and to do it straight after you is amazing.

Absolutely amazing. Yes. We, like I said, we went nuts for several minutes. I was literally shaking after it happened and I think he was just dumbfounded, didn't know how to really take it all in. And so we had a couple of little celebratory shots of tequila, which is our drink of choice, and just had a blast the rest of the day. And the locals loved it and they embraced it as well. and we ran up quite a little tab of whiskey for a few of the folks that were around. I'm quite a competitive person and I was just wondering if there was any part of your son that was like, could you not just have let me have the whole in one myself? My first one.

Probably yeah, probably and you know I think as we were continuing on, I did make the realization to say, Hey buddy, I made mine first. I didn't even win the hole. We tied the hole. Oh, of course. We were playing a match. It was unbelievable. Well, you know who I feel sorry for because there was a lovely photo of you and your son arms around each other on On the Herald website, but someone else had to take that photo and I assume they were also playing with you Is that your youngest son? I Don't know if that photo was taken by my wife or my younger son one of the two of them And yeah, I think I think the younger son the Kara is very happy for us

I think the younger son Eric Kara is very happy for us. I think the younger son, Eric, is still a little bit bitter about everything. He's like, no pressure, guys. Who had to take the first shot on the next hole? Yeah, he said, I made birdie on the hole before. Nobody cares about that. He said, I'm already sick of hearing the story three days in. So they've done the odds on it. Someone somewhere in the world is one in 17 million

or the chances of this happening? Yeah, and it's interesting, since that came out, I think I've had a couple of stats thrown at me that were far greater odds than that. So one that was in the 20 billion to one range when calculated same day, back to back shots, par four, father son. It was a long shot. It was a long shot, literally a long shot. You sound like an incredibly keen golfing family.

How much does golf dominate your life? Oh, well, I mean, it literally dominates my life. It's what I do for a living. I don't play golf for a living, but we've been in the game as a career. We've developed a few golf courses with my business partner here in New Zealand. And I've been in the game my whole life and actually both of my sons, Blake, my elder son who made that, he's worked for us for four years up at Tiara Links, our property up north of Auckland. And so yeah, golf is very much a part of my day to day.

Your wife, is she on board or is she like, can we go see some stuff in Scotland other than golf courses? No we did see the one token castle. So we did have a castle day. Alright, seen the castle. Back to the golf course. We did a castle in falconry in the morning and then we still got out that day for golf. Literally we played every single day. Wow, that's impressive. Hey, well when you're back, we must take you to the mini golf course by the airport.

Oh yeah, we can do the pirate one and try to get home runs after each other. Sounds great. Or the new one on Key Street down in the airport. Oh yeah, we can do the pirate one and try and get home ones after each other. Sounds great, sounds great. Or the new one on Key Street down in the water. Oh yeah, you pick the course, we'll be there. I'm in. Lovely to meet you, Jim, and congratulations. Amazing story. Good to meet you guys.

Have a great day.