Cy Norman looked out upon gray skies on Monday and, even though he loves to golf, he considered staying home rather than spending the day at Benton Country Club, which sits about 100 miles east of St. Louis.
Sure, Norman prides himself on hard work. In fact, as a member of the Benton High School golf team, the sophomore has put together a strategy — the three Cs — based on some of the PGA Tour’s biggest names.
This is how he describes each:
COMPETE (in honor of Tiger Woods): “It goes into preparation. Never giving up during a round, no matter how far behind we get.”
COMPOSURE (in honor of Rickie Fowler): “You can’t really tell how high or how low he is. You can’t really tell if he just made an eagle or a double.”
CLASS (in honor of Phil Mickelson): “You never see him get down or be disrespectful, He’s always congratulating the winner or if he wins, he’s nice and he’s finishing up class.”
So since he’s constantly trying to work on his game, the 15-year-old trudged out for a round of golf, knowing that storms might make the area around the course a little soupy.
Norman, whose dad is a coach, started playing golf at the age of three. He says he “started to take it seriously” at the age of eight.
But earlier this week, he did something very few golfers have ever pulled off — sticking hole-in-ones on two different holes in one round.
The first was on the fourth hole, which typically plays around 150 yards, but Norman said it was playing at 135 yards.
“It one-hopped in,” he said. “Some women from the third tee saw it go on.”
Obviously, Norman was ecstatic, even though this marked his third ace, so it wasn’t unfamiliar territory.
Soon after, his friend, former Benton teammate and recent graduate Collin Miller, saw him and paired up with him on the sixth hole. Norman explained what had already happened and Miller joked that Norman should do it again on the seventh hole, which is also a par-3.
It was about 120 to the pin with a slight breeze and Norman’s
It flew into the left side of the pin, went past it and had enough spin where it rolled back in.
“The second one, my buddy Collin and I just started going crazy,” he said.
Two aces. In a four-hole stretch.
According to the National Hole-In-One Registry, the odds of one player making two holes-in-one in the same round are 67 million-to-1.
Despite his accomplishments, Norman has stayed — like he speaks of Mickelson — classy. He doesn’t boast of his accomplishments, and in fact insists he’s been fortunate.
“I mean it’s just as much luck as it is skill. All the ones I’ve had could have easily hit the pin and ricocheted out,” he said.