Promising teenage amateur Chloe Veeran has bagged a hole in one and a $60,000 car at a pro-am in Western Australia while cameras were rolling. And she can accept the car after a recent change to golf’s rules.
Cameras captured the exhilarating moment the 16-year-old from Busselton, WA made the ace at the Izuzu Southwest Open, a pro am held at Bunbury Golf Club. Veeran used a 7 iron from 137 metres for the ace at the 17th hole of the composite course (the regular eighth hole).
The prize on offer for an ace at the 17th was an Isuzu D-Max Ute worth about $60,000. Veeran, whose handicap is 1, is an L-plater so the car comes at a good time.
Watch below as Veeran runs toward the green to confirm her ace, and a separate video that was rolling on a smartphone, which filmed from behind the green as all groups came through the hole:
Previously, the Rules of Golf would not have allowed an amateur making a hole in one to accept a prize until a rule change that came into effect on January 1, 2022. “The amendment allows for an amateur to accept a prize of any value for a hole-in-one of at least 50 yards recorded during a tee-to-hole golf competition,” Golf Australia organisation tweeted.
Veeran with the Izuzu car. Picture: Bunbury GC
Veeran is a talented amateur who, according to Golf WA, first picked up a club as a child in South Africa before taking the game more seriously around age 10 in Australia.
She was this year selected in GolfWA’s Talent Development Program Tier 1 in addition to the 2023 Junior State Squad.
The Southwest open is a historic event as it is one of WA’s longest running golf events dating back to 1948 with past players such as Min Woo Lee, Peter Lonard, Stephen Leaney, Craig Parry, Nick O’Hern and Greg Chalmers.
Bunbury is one of the top courses on WA’s Golf Coast. With more undulating land and artistic shapes to its greens and bunkering, the course at Clifton Park once hosted the late, great Severiano Ballesteros in a tournament in 1979 along with an armada of other big names at the time.
