SANDWICH, England (Reuters) – England’s Jonathan Thomson, the tallest player on the European PGA Tour, made a hole-in-one at the par-three 16th in the British Open second round on Friday.
The six foot nine 25-year-old, who recovered from leukaemia as a child, sent his tee shot straight into the cup at the 162-yard hole before raising his arms to the skies in celebration.
Thomson, ranked 889th in the world, also birdied the 17th to move to two under par and barring a collapse on the last hole will comfortably make the halfway cut in his first major championship appearance.
At the same hole in the 1967 Dunlop Masters, England’s Tony Jacklin, the former British and U.S. Open champion, made the first hole-in-one shown on live television.
(Reporting by Ed Osmond, editing by Pritha Sarkar)