![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Darren-McCullum-Aces-864x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Liam Wyllie <\/p>\n
\u201cGood things come in threes\u201d proved true for Darren McCallum, who recorded three holes-in-one in the space of three weeks across three different golf courses.<\/p>\n
A member of Bannockburn Golf Club 30 minutes west of Geelong, McCallum made his first-ever ace on Sunday April 12 at Ocean Grove Golf Club, backed it up just two days later at his home club on April 14, before completing the remarkable hat-trick on Sunday May 3 at The Sands Torquay \u2013 exactly three weeks after his first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been playing golf regularly for about three years and had never really gone close,\u201d McCallum said.<\/p>\n
According to the National Hole-In-One Registry, the odds of an average golfer making an ace are roughly 12,000-to-1, making the chances of three in three weeks almost impossible to comprehend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI picked a few lottery numbers last week, but I don\u2019t think any of them got up,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n
A builder by trade with a 10.8 handicap, McCallum represents Bannockburn in Division 5 Pennant \u2013 the format in which he recorded two of his aces \u2013 with the first dropping at Ocean Grove\u2019s par-3 10th.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit a 9-iron a foot past and it sucked back in, much to my surprise because, generally speaking, I don\u2019t clean my wedges and nothing spins backwards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d been cleaning my grooves and made a little note to myself that I should do this more often.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not right up with all the etiquette around holes-in-one, so I just kept playing with the ball and put it out of bounds two holes later.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Three hole in ones in three weeks for Darren McCullum.<\/p>\n
Two days later, his second ace came during a midweek competition at Bannockburn, although his playing partners missed the moment while looking at their phones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve hit it, watched it go in the hole and not said anything; they\u2019ve all got their heads down in their phones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I just hit another hole-in-one,\u2019 and sure enough, they didn\u2019t believe me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey walked down and their hands were up in the air \u2013 they couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A trip to New Zealand meant he missed a week of golf before returning for Pennant at The Sands, where he completed the unbelievable treble.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a punch-and-run 6-iron and it went over a ridge, so I couldn\u2019t see it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy opponent was a bit taller than me and he said, \u2018It\u2019s gone in.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve had two of these in the last two weeks \u2013 it hasn\u2019t gone in,\u2019 and he goes, \u2018No, you\u2019ve had another one.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite achieving the near-impossible, McCallum said golf still had a way of keeping him humble.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it sounds odd, but what was going through my head was, How can I be playing such bad golf and have this all happen in the same period?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause in between this, there was just absolute rubbish getting dished up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The streak finally came to an end when he teed it up again the following weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who are good putters say to me, \u2018You\u2019ve got to believe every putt\u2019s going in.\u2019 I\u2019ve just taken it one step further now and stand on the tee believing it\u2019s going to go in,\u201d McCallum joked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t worked \u2013 we played Saturday and I don\u2019t think I hit a green.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s got to the point now where we\u2019re on the par 3s and blokes get their phones out.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, I need the circus to stop running, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Liam Wyllie \u201cGood things come in threes\u201d proved true for Darren McCallum, who recorded three holes-in-one in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,107224,755,85],"class_list":["post-740373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-club-news","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}