Ever Hit a Hole in One? She's Got 13 of Them

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif., June 2, 2007 — -- Jackie Gagne took up golf and the life of leisure only four years ago when she sold her computer business and retired from Rhode Island to the desert.

She plays golf nearly every day, but she's honest about her skills.

"Average, really," says the 46-year-old golfer.

But this average golfer has been featured in her local newspaper, Golf World and The Wall Street Journal.

Gagne has become a kind of statistical ripple in time. She keeps hitting holes in one. One day, she even shot two of them in one round of golf.

Since Jan. 23, she has made 13 holes in one.

Compare that to the professional phenomenon Tiger Woods, who has made 18 holes in one in his life, only one on the PGA tour.

Gagne's friends say that some days she's just in the groove with her swing.

"I can feel it," she says. "When it's a solid swing, you know it."

For the run-of-the-mill golfer, the odds of getting a hole in one are generally believed to be about 5,000 to one.

The odds of doing it 13 times in 75 rounds of golf multiply out to one out of 14 million- trillion-trillion. That's a one opposite a 14 with 30 zeroes after it.

Cal Tech mathematician Gary Lorden says that with Gagne's propensity to hit aces, her odds are actually much better than that.

"This is probably the most extraordinary athletic feat in terms of shear odds that I've ever done a calculation for," he says.

Gagne has her skeptics among golfers. Tell her story to someone who's been hacking away for 30 years, and you're bound to get an, "Oh, really?"

Gagne says, "Oh yeah, you hear things. But I say, "Come on, let's put some money; let's go out and shoot some balls.' "

It's been expensive for her. Every time Gagne makes a hole in one, she's treated the crowd at the bar to Dom Perignon champagne. It's cost several thousand dollars.

All holes-in-one have to be verified by witnesses, and Gagne says even strangers have signed her scorecard verifying the shots.

None of Gagne's holes in one were captured on videotape until a local news crew went out to talk to her.