Two guys, two swings - and two aces

Think there are long odds of the Seattle Mariners winning the World Series? That’s nothing compared to what happened last month at Mirror Lake Golf Course in Bonners Ferry.

Immediately after 15-year-old Wyatt Iacolucci recorded an ace on the par-3 eighth hole, another golfer in his group, Scott Schopen, 67, put his tee shot in the cup on hole No. 9 ... which happens to be a par-4.

“Unreal. It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Chad Iacolucci, Wyatt’s father and the other golfer in the lucky group.

How rare was this golfing achievement? The odds against it are at least 2.6 million to 1.

But to paraphrase Han Solo, never tell us the odds. Let’s get to the story.

Wyatt already has beaten the odds by recording two holes-in-one over his short golfing career.

On June 11, 2013 — at age 10 — Wyatt aced the par-3 second hole at Mirror Lake, a nine-hole course located on U.S. 95, just south of Bonners Ferry.

Almost five years later to the day, lightning struck again for Wyatt as he stood on the eighth-hole tee, 152 yards away from the cup, with a 6-iron in his hands.

“It was heading straight for the pin, but I thought it went over the green,” he recalled. “None of us saw it land.”

The reason for that is someone was between the three golfers and the eighth green — course general manager and PGA professional Ralph Lotspeich.

“I was working in the pond (on the eighth hole), installing an aerator fountain. The ball went right over me and I never saw it,” Lotspeich said. “After they hit, I had to go back to the maintenance shop to get a tool for the job, so I wasn’t there when they found the ball in the hole.”

“Scott yelled ‘Fore!’ right as Wyatt hit his tee shot to warn Ralph — the ball went well over his head. But we were looking at him, so none of us saw it,” Chad said.

After the trio searched beyond the green, Wyatt jokingly suggested he should look in the hole — the teen did have a previous ace, after all.

“I was pretty excited — I couldn’t believe it,” Wyatt said. “To do it twice almost exactly five years apart, it’s pretty crazy.”

More craziness came on the ninth tee. The 282-yard (from the white tees) final hole offers golfers a choice: an open lay-up shot to the dogleg-shaped fairway, or a long shot through or over pine trees to a green guarded by more trees and a sandtrap.

Schopen, who moved to Bonners Ferry five years ago, likes to play nine holes at Mirror Lake after work. He does it nearly every weekday during the summer, often with Chad and Wyatt as his playing partners.

Usually Schopen lays up in the fairway and hits a chip shot onto the ninth green, but on June 5, he decided to take out his driver and echo Chad’s technique of hitting through the trees.

“Chad always takes a driver and hits it toward the trees, and 90 percent of the time it gets through. So I thought I’d try it,” Schopen said. “I hit a screaming line drive and saw it go through a gap in those trees, then I lost sight of it.”

For the second straight hole the group searched around the green, for more than 15 minutes, Chad said.

“I looked in the bunker, looked all around the trees … then Wyatt said he’d look in the hole,” Schopen said. “He pulled out a ball and asked, ‘Titlist 2?’ I couldn’t believe it.”

It was the first ace for Schopen in 30 years of playing golf, and the first hole-in-one ever recorded at Mirror Lake’s final hole.

“Ralph told me, technically, it’s a hole-in-one and a double-eagle, since it was a par-4,” Schopen added. “I notched both of those with one swing.”

“He never goes for it on that hole, but on that day, he pulled out his driver,” Wyatt said of Schopen. “It was wonderful to see him do it on a par-4 — to be a part of something so rare.”

Exactly how rare is tough to state exactly. In a November 2013 story, Golf Digest estimated the average amateur golfer has a 12,500 to 1 chance of hitting a hole in one on each tee shot.

The magazine said the odds of a foursome recording two aces in the same round are 1.3 million to 1. Because Mirror Lake has only nine holes, the Iacolucci and Schopen threesome’s odds of two aces were twice as high.

And that’s without considering the fact one of the holes-in-one was on a par-4.

The rarity of a par-4 ace was reflected in the lack of souvenir flags for the ninth hole. Lotspeich typically awards one to anyone recording an ace on his course, but they are only printed with the par-3 hole numbers on them. A special flag is being made for Schopen’s achievement.

Wyatt, who plays in the Mirror Lake men’s league, competes for the Bonners Ferry High School golf team and previously has played in junior PGA events, said he hasn’t come close to a hole-in-one since that lucky day.

But five years from now, he plans to be on Mirror Lake Golf Course in the early part of June, hoping the stars will align like a straight uphill putt once again.