"The pin was in play" - Anyone heard of this before?

Hi Folks.

Fairly new here and enjoy reading peoples thoughts and stories so I thought I'd share this one and see if anyone else had ever come across it before:

A friend of mine was playing at a local par 3 course and on the final hole he hit his tee shot which struck the pin and ended up a few feet away.

As he walked up several people around the green congratulated him on his "Hole in One".

Apparently the 'rule' at the final hole on this course is that "The pin is in play" so if your ball hits it with your tee shot it counts as being holed! I must emphasise that this is very much a recreational course. I don't imagine anyone there is using this rule for handicapping purposes so I'm not bothered about the 'correctness' of this 'local rule'.

He even has a plaque commemorating it:

I've asked a few people who've played golf for many years and none of them have heard of it before. However, all of these people, myself included, have played the majority of their golf in the UK.

Is this something people in North America have seen before/regularly?

I don't think this is something many people have heard of. I know I haven't, as a matter of fact, if this rule was real/in effect I would have gotten a HIO before rofl. Actually, last night I may have dropped the ball in the hole from the tee and it bounced out because I saw my ball bounce up as high as the flag stick and roll to the back of the green but couldn't find any ball marks on the green to attribute to my shot... Of course nobody was there to confirm my story so it's just a whatever story.

I wish. I'd have two hole in ones then.

To answer your question, No. Nobody counts that over here

So only 15 people have hit the pin in 7 years?  Sounds phenomenal.

That is very odd. I've never heard of this rule. As many above, I'd have a few myself and have witnessed it happen many times by others too. Also, if this happened to me while playing some new course, I would not consider it a hole-in-one even if others at the course were congratulating me.

The only explanation I can imagine for this would be that it is related to buying drinks.

Given that it's the final hole, the idea would be "Too bad. It's not an ace but you hit the flag. You still have to buy the drinks. Ha ha!"

Other than that, why not say a shot into the bunker is an eagle. It's just stupid.

that would have to be the dumbest thing i have ever heard of a course doing lol. i always thought the ball had to be in the hole when you got there to be a hole in one not some were on the green after hitting the flag. i wanna play there so i can helpfully get my first hole in 1

Lol, yeah, if anything they'd count a ball that landed in and bounced out a HIO not one that hit the flag :-P BUT it's a par 3 course for fun and they can make their own rules because who cares really, right?

Wait! Does this mean Tiger won the 2013 Masters?????

haha - afraid not. I believe it was only designed as a rule for the final hole! :P

This is ridiculous.  I'm not completely sure how the whole "local rules" things work.  But aren't there limitations on what rules or procedures in golf cannot be changed by a local rule?  This is akin to stating that a course has a local rule that you can take "breakfast balls" off the first tee.

If I had hit the shot when they started congratulating me my first thought would be that I was on Candid Camera and once I realized they were serious I would tell them they were out of their minds.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm pleased to see that the general feeling matches my own disbelief upon hearing about this! The commemorative plaque really sealed the greatness of the story for me.

I count myself lucky that my friend is very much a non-golfer and cannot really appreciate the frustration of a golfer of 30+ years who has never had a hole-in-one hearing about his 'success'.

If he knew he would assuredly wind me up about it a lot more often!!

To be fair to the course it sounds like a fun place ran by a local couple - http://hackershavenpar3.com I don't think they have any illusions that their course would ever be affiliated with Golf Canada for handicapping purposes etc etc.

I imagine they brought this in as a gimmick as they liked the idea of the 'Honor Roll' but realised that they would probably only be putting up a plaque once every couple of years if they insisted on actual holes-in-one!

Looks like those guys need a capital L behind their handicap index.

And I have a lot more chip-ins than I thought.

I played with some guys today, one of them hit the pin on a 30 yard chip shot, guess we should have counted that as a birdie 3. Still was an amazing shot though and hell of a par save.