For years, the Volvo Masters Amateur in the UK has seen tens of thousands of rounds of golf, millions of golf shots come and go, but still the elusive hole-in-one remained elusive.

That was until 2009 when first Keith Larner holed-out with his tee shot at the 13^th hole at The Grove, Phil Bailey did likewise at the 9^th at Little Aston and then, defying the odds, Ashley Ricketts holed his tee shot at the short Par-3 13^th hole at The New Course, St Andrews.

Commenting on his first ever hole-in-one, Ricketts, another Volvo Masters Amateur Tour regular said, "The hole was 167 yards and playing into a stiff breeze so I hit my 5-iron into the teeth of the wind, the ball pitched 5 feet short of the hole and rolled into the cup, right before my eyes."

He added, "To get a hole-in-one is amazing, but to do so at St Andrews, the ‘Home of Golf,' is awesome and to get the third on the Tour in under a month is just incredible."

A statistician at the nearby St Andrews University calculated the odds of three aces in a month as, "Off the scale, absolutely incalculable," which now begs the question, who is next in the remarkable run of holes-in-one on the Volvo Masters Amateur Tour in the UK?

www.vmat.co.uk