Rory at Abu Dhabi.....first ace on tour

World number one, and he's never had one on tour before.  Freddie took forever too, before he finally knocked one in the jar on the 17th at Sawgrass.

Just goes to show how fickle these damn things can be!

Edited to add that of course, it's Abu Dhabi, not Dubai.

What type of vodoo magic was that. The ball bounces back and to the side, then rolls forward and in. Lucky bastard!

I thought Freddie put the first one in the water and he parred by getting his "hole-in-one" with his second ball?

He did that in 1999, and that's what he's better remembered for. But he made his first ever ace at the same hole a couple of years before.

I was about to mention the same thing, then I looked it up and found out he did hit a hole in one there back in '97. A hole in 3 would be pretty cool to have

Yes he does. Kid has ALOT of power. Congrats on the Ace Rory!

What freaks me out, it was a 177 yd shot and he hit.......... 9 iron!!

he's 5'9... and beats on all his clubs... his power (with accuracy) is amazing

Maybe the wind was at his back and he was going at it from a high elevation? 177 9 iron is not natural.. Abu Dabi is a high humidity area as well so that might help the ball travel right? I'm reaching right? Nice shot though! The guy is good!

I haven't made a HIO on tour either. This makes me more comfortable with the situation.

That's a good chuckle, 'a 177 9i is not natural'.  Tell me plz, what is a natural 9i?  And would you ever play such an un-natural shot, if you could?

Could you lift 50x your body weight?  That would be, say 200 lbs x 50  = 10,000 lbs.  Pretty un-natural right?  That feat, however, is perfectly normal for the normal ant.

Rory swings his driver around 120mph which is fast, depending on his 9i loft he would be hitting it around 160.. 177 is unnatural even for a touring pro as I doubt the majority of the touring pros are swinging at 120mph driver ss are they? The natural 9i for the tour player would be their average wouldn't it? Say around 150 or so. I don't know what this has to do with ants though, and beside my comment was more along the lines of being at awe of the feat of his.

It was slightly downwind, and there is a pretty good drop in elevation from the tee box to the green.

Rory swings his driver around 120mph which is fast, depending on his 9i loft he would be hitting it around 160.. 177 is unnatural even for a touring pro as I doubt the majority of the touring pros are swinging at 120mph driver ss are they? The natural 9i for the tour player would be their average wouldn't it? Say around 150 or so. I don't know what this has to do with ants though, and beside my comment was more along the lines of being at awe of the feat of his.[/quote] Tracking a driver SS of 120, his standard shot 43 degree 9i should carry something like 159. He seems to be putting it back in his stance to take some loft out to get 177?

Someone who was there already confirmed it was slightly downwind with a significant downslop.. You aren't going to want to deloft a 9i in my opinion going to a sever downslope hole, you'd want a soft landing to stick the green or get a hole in one like he did ;)

Someone who was there already confirmed it was slightly downwind with a significant downslop.. You aren't going to want to deloft a 9i in my opinion going to a sever downslope hole, you'd want a soft landing to stick the green or get a hole in one like he did ;)[/quote] 18 yards is a lot of carry difference. 9i was probably chosen for it's higher spin. If you take some loft out of the 9i, it still has lots of spin. Maybe that's the flight he was attempting?

Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't, I said that it was unnatural that's all.. Because even by tour standards it is unnatural.. For a "normal" 9i stock shot that is.. I can't even verify it was a 9i, someone mentioned it and I took it for granted. Anyway, it was a great shot plus a little lucky bounce and spin..