New Zealand golfer Daniel Hillier wins a BMW with a hole-in-one at the Spanish Open
Daniel Hillier, 28, caught his 8-iron off the toe on the 17th at the Spanish Open on Thursday and was not happy with it. The ball went in anyway. The first ace on that hole that week came with a car.
11 October 2026
Photo: via Stuff
Daniel Hillier took an 8-iron on the 17th at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid on Thursday, a par-3 of 187 yards, in the first round of the Spanish Open, and caught the ball off the toe of the club, the Associated Press reported.
It was pretty crazy. To be honest, I toed it quite a bit. Wasn’t too happy with the strike.Daniel Hillier
The ball “kind of hung in the air for a little bit longer than I thought,” he said. It came down level with the flag, hopped once to the left and rolled in.
The first player to make a hole-in-one on the 17th that week won an all-electric BMW iX5, worth about $157,000 according to the European tour. Hillier had no idea. “I didn’t realize a car was on offer,” he said. It is a long drive to New Zealand.
He thinks it was the fifth ace of his career. He finished the day on 67, four under, a shot behind the three leaders, Grant Forrest, Connor Syme and Eugenio Chacarra.
Hillier is 28. In March he won the New Zealand Open a few days after his wedding. “It just keeps getting better,” he said.
Carry a story in five words
We run a game called Long Story Short: one real news sentence a day, and you keep the five words that carry it. Today’s is below. Do play.
How to play
One real news sentence. The job is to keep the five words that carry the story and let the rest go, then guess. Blue means the right word in the right place, orange the right word in the wrong place.
Yesterday: An 11-year-old who had learned from YouTube what to do saved a choking six-year-old boy at McDonald’s by patting him on the back until a chicken nugget came out. The five were 11-year-old saved choking six-year-old boy.