Victor Perez sinks second-ever hole-in-one in a U.S. Open at Oakmont
Follow The Athletic's live coverage of the 2025 U.S. Open.
Victor Perez aced the sixth hole in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club on Friday, becoming just the second golfer in 10 U.S. Opens at the famed course to pull off the feat.
The first came in 1983, when Scott Simpson made a hole-in-one on the 16th.
Advertisement
Perez's moment came on the 192-yard, par-3 sixth thanks to the strength of his 7-iron. Upon drilling a straight drive, the Frenchman watched his ball bounce three times before bounding into the cup as the crowd erupted.
In celebration, Perez threw both hands in the air before chest-bumping his caddie and high-fiving his playing partners. He gave a couple of smiling shrugs as he took off his glove, à la Michael Jordan in the 1992 NBA Finals.
🚨 ACE ALERT 🚨
Victor Perez 🇫🇷 with a great shot and an even better celebration! pic.twitter.com/cmkThegam2
— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 13, 2025
Perez's ace provided respite against the brutality of Oakmont — he previously triple-bogeyed his third hole of the day, the par-5 12th. Despite the triple and two other bogeys, the ace plus three birdies helped Perez finish the roller-coaster round even par. He finished Thursday with a Round 1 score of 1-over-par, leaving him well within the projected cut line.
Perez, 32, has never made the cut at a U.S. Open. His best finish at a major came at the 2023 PGA Championship, where he finished tied for 12th.
The last U.S. Open ace before Perez came in dramatic fashion from Francesco Molinari at Pinehurst last year. Molinari sank a hole-in-one on his final hole of the second round to sneak under the cut line and qualify for the weekend.
Perez's ace, which was his first on the PGA Tour, was the 54th in U.S. Open history. In May, two players recorded holes-in-ones at the PGA Championship, including Si Woo Kim, who made the longest ace in major history from 252 yards out.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Robbie Williams records FIFA walk-out anthem, to debut at Club World Cup
British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams has recorded a FIFA walk-out anthem which will debut at the Club World Cup in the United States. The Athletic reported in January that Williams, 51, would perform a song for the 2025 Club World Cup as part of his ambassadorial role with world football's governing body. Advertisement FIFA confirmed on Saturday Williams had written and recorded an anthem titled 'Desire', which will be played before all FIFA tournament fixtures as the teams walk out onto the pitch and line up, including at the 2026 men's World Cup. The former Take That artist performed a snippet of the track at the Club World Cup's launch event for its trophy tour in New York in January, but it will debut in full ahead of the first game of the tournament between Inter Miami and Al Ahly at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday. The song was written alongside Karl Brazil, Owen Parker and Erik Jan Grob, while Italian singer Laura Pausini also features on the vocals. 'I've grown up watching the walk-outs, the anthems, the drama – so writing and recording the official FIFA anthem is a real privilege,' Williams said. 'I wanted to create something that captures all of it — the passion, the nerves, the pride and the majesty of that feeling just before kick-off.' Williams supports his local club Port Vale, who won promotion from League Two last season, and he was named their club president last year. He has worked with FIFA in the past, including performing at the opening ceremony of the 2018 men's World Cup in Russia. His performance provoked U.S. broadcaster Fox to issue an apology — via the Hollywood Reporter — after he stuck his middle finger up directly into the camera during the broadcast, which would have been shown in millions of homes worldwide. The revamped 32-team Club World Cup begins on Saturday, with FIFA forced to cut ticket prices for the opening fixture between Inter Miami and Al Ahly amid concerns of empty seats. The Athletic reported on June 11 the governing body's latest attempts to fill Hard Rock Stadium involved offering students at an affiliated local college a single ticket for $20 — but with the promise of up to four complimentary tickets.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Angels Make Historic Taylor Ward Announcement Amid 7th Straight Win
Los Angeles Angels left fielder Taylor Ward is one of several players on the team producing at the plate recently. The 31-year-old went 3-for-4 with a homer, five RBI, and a walk in their 10-5 win over the Athletics on Thursday, extending his hitting streak to eight games. Ward is now slashing .225/.272/.508 with a team-high 14 homers and 34 RBI through 48 games this season. The 6-foot, 200-pounder already matched his 2023 home run total, which he notched in 97 games that season. He also is on pace to pass his career high of 25 homers in one campaign, which he hit across 156 contests in 2024. Advertisement Los Angeles made an announcement about Taylor after he hit his 426-foot grand slam to center in the seventh inning on Thursday, via Angels PR. Los Angeles Angels left fielder Taylor Ward (3).John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports "Taylor Ward connects for his sixth career grand slam and second this season. Ward also has an extra-base hit in eight straight games, the longest such stretch by a Halo since Tim Salmon in 2000," the team reported. The homer gave the Angels a 6-5 lead. Ward's five RBI also tied his single-game career-high, via Angels PR. Los Angeles is now one game under .500 at 24-25, and is tied with the Texas Rangers for third place in the AL West. Both clubs are one game behind the second-place Houston Astros and 4.5 behind the first-place Seattle Mariners. Advertisement The Angels are also 2.5 games behind the Cleveland Guardians for the AL's third and final Wild Card spot, along with the Rangers and Boston Red Sox. Related: Angels' Ron Washington Makes Controversial Zach Neto Statement Related: Angels Star Mike Trout Announces Injury News on Wednesday Angels Make Historic Taylor Ward Announcement Amid 7th Straight Win first appeared on Athlon Sports on May 22, 2025
CNN
35 minutes ago
- CNN
Fever dream: Caitlin Clark and her teammates are still shocked – and inspired – by the circus following their team
Caitlin Clark says that she always dreamed of playing in the WNBA – and dreamed of playing in front of big crowds – but the seismic transformation she has inspired in women's basketball has still taken her by surprise. 'Being on the magnitude it is,' she told CNN Sports recently, 'is kind of hard to imagine.' During the Indiana Fever's first game of the new season in May, the excitement levels were at a fever pitch. Journalists covering the game against the Chicago Sky compared the energy both inside and outside of the packed 17,000-seat arena to a championship game, not the opener of a 44-game regular season. Her teammates dreamed it too, though many wondered if they'd ever experience it personally during their careers. During that home opener, Indiana's 37-year-old Dawanna Bonner became the WNBA's third-highest scorer of all time, but all the hoopla at Gainbridge Fieldhouse was something new. 'The atmosphere was insane,' Bonner explained to CNN Sports. 'I don't think I've ever played in front of that many people before, I was a little shellshocked. You see it on TV, but to be in it, it's like, 'Whoa!'' Since its inception in 1996, the WNBA alone was never able to fully support professional players, and Bonner spent 16 years supplementing her income from the Phoenix Mercury and the Connecticut Sun by playing in the Czech Republic, Spain, Russia, China, Israel, Hungary and Turkey. She said, 'To have all those fans screaming for you is a pretty cool experience, you've gotta get used to it!' Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell, 29, is now in the eighth year of her professional career and she's also having to adjust to the intensity of life at the epicenter of a women's sports revolution. 'It's an experience,' Mitchell chuckled, explaining to CNN Sports that the intensity isn't just confined to the court in front of packed arenas. 'The media, the constant eyes, some of the eyes you least expect. I've been in the league a while, so this is kind of new for me. I knew it would get here eventually. I didn't expect the impact, but it's such a positive and beautiful way.' Even the younger players, like 24-year-old Lexie Hull, appreciate that the explosion in the popularity of the women's game could not have been taken for granted. 'I was talking to Caitlin in the locker room, and we said, 'How lucky are we to lace up our shoes and do this for a living, as a job?'' Hull told CNN. 'The amount of people who come out every night and support us and cheer for us, it's pretty surreal.' Some of those young fans are now dreaming of following their idols into the league. Eleven-year-old Kamryn Thomas and her friend Merridy Kennington and their moms drove 300 miles to see Clark and the Fever play in Atlanta against the Dream. 'I think both of our dreams is to be in the WNBA,' Kamryn said confidently, while Merridy said that Clark is doing more than just inspiring them: 'I just feel that watching her makes me better and better.' Excitement in women's basketball might seem normal to such young fans, but their parents have told them that it wasn't always this way. 'I've explained to her that I grew up playing college basketball and it was never like this,' said Stephanie Thomas. 'Caitlin Clark has delivered something to women's sports that I don't think anybody else could deliver, and I think she's got a lot of women excited to see the future of their athlete daughters.' This moment in women's sports is long overdue, and everybody touched by it seems to recognize that things will never be the same again. Hull said she spent four years playing basketball and studying for a degree at university, assuming that she'd get a regular job at the end of it. 'I didn't think I'd be playing basketball every day,' she explained to CNN Sports. 'This is (now) a real option for girls, they can have these dreams in first and second grade, being a basketball player is now a legitimate goal to have. I just can't imagine what the sport is going to look like when players have been playing with that goal in mind for 15 years.' While some WNBA players might struggle to say that the rapid transformation of their sport is down to one player, the ticket prices for recent Fever games make Clark's impact hard to deny. TickPick reported a 71% decrease in ticket value when she was injured on the sidelines, while Sports Illustrated reported prices plummeting from $393 down to just $7. 'I like to think our team is here for her,' Mitchell said. 'So, whatever she does, she keeps changing the world, and we're here to support it.' Clark herself says she can't imagine where things might go from here. She can remember being the young fan looking up with wide eyes and big dreams and she understands the responsibility that she carries now. 'I try to make as much time as I can to sign an autograph because that can really impact somebody's life. Maybe they're going to put that up in their room and look at it every day and have something to dream about, it's not something I take lightly at all,' the superstar guard said to CNN. 'A lot of people didn't believe that women's sports would be in the moment that it is today. It's going to continue to grow and I'm lucky to be a part of it. I think, really, the sky's the limit.'
