What do Justin Thomas, Gary Woodland, Matt Kuchar, Cheyenne Woods, Alex Noren and Matthew Fitzpatrick have in common?
For starters, they are all part of Team Troon, a group of professional golfers representing the Troon brand. And as part of a recent renewal of the Team Troon initiative, these golf pros took on their most novel challenge yet. Make a hole in one. From the water.
That’s right. Our partners at Breaking Par — a half-hour monthly show on Fox Sports Networks throughout the United States — documented the challenge in a recent episode, where J.T. and company traveled to Rio Secco Golf Club in Las Vegas to raise money for local charities impacted by COVID-19. Each competitor was boated out to a 12-by-12, fully turfed floating tee box in the middle of a pond. From there, each had an opening shot from 145 yards. If that ball went in the hole, they would win $1 million (half of which would go to a charity of their choice).
Afterward, the golfers tried to put three more shots from the same tee box as close to the pin as possible. The closest of these would net the winning contestant an additional $10,000 to be put towards charity.
“I’ve never hit a shot off of an island tee box before, so it definitely stands in a league of its own,” said Thomas.
What happened next?