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BRISBANE, Australia — Australian tour pro Daniel Gale predicted he would make a hole-in-one the night before bagging a spectacular ace that came with a $123,000 BMW during the opening round of the DP World Tour’s Australian PGA Championship.
Gale, from Sydney, was playing the first round of the opening event of the 2025-26 DP World Tour season at Royal Queensland Golf Club when he flushed an 8-iron from 168 yards at the par-3 11th. TV commentators were flabbergasted given the front left hole location was as difficult as it could be positioned on the par 3. Not for Gale, who plays a baby draw.
His perfectly judged tee shot bounced softly on the green and trickled gently into the hole. The 29-year-old celebrated wildly having won a BMW M5 Touring worth $123,000—courtesy of the luxury car manufacturer being the title sponsor of the Australian PGA.
“I mean that pin was a hole-in-one pin today for me, but it’s probably the hardest pin on that green to get close to,” Gayle said, after the ace contributed to a five-under-par total he built through 12 holes before the first round was suspended for the day due to storms. He sat two shots off the lead held by Sebastian Garcia.
“I took a slightly longer club, hit 8-iron [with] this perfect baby draw riding the wind and landed it perfectly and trickled in at perfect speed as well.”
The most fascinating aspect of Gale’s ace was that on Wednesday night in Brisbane, Gale wildly prophesized to his girlfriend and her family that he would make a hole-in-one and thus win the beautiful new BMW station wagon.
The ace came only hours after New Zealand pro and former Western Amateur champion Kazuma Kobori registered a 1 of his own at the par-3 17th at Royal Queensland.
“I checked the prizes or the notices that we get earlier in the week, and I saw that it changed from just the weekend prize to everyday prize,” said Gale, lost his full DP World Tour card last season. “When I saw the prize change, I was like, ‘Oh that’s pretty good.’ I played in the pro-am [Wednesday] and I said, ‘this baby’s mine’. [Later that evening] I guess I semi-joked, you always want to believe it, with the girlfriend and her family last night, ‘Yeah, that’s mine tomorrow’. And it actually happened, so it’s pretty crazy.”
It was Gale’s third ace during a tournament and sixth overall. The last came in 2023 at the Sandbelt Invitational at Royal Melbourne’s East course, a tournament founded by 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy. It came with three holes left in the tournament and helped him win the event by one shot. “The only other one in comp was my first one when I was 12 years old,” Gale said. “To actually win a prize, it’s actually pretty surreal.”
After play was suspended, Gale was brought to the media center where this fantastic video was captured of him re-watching the ace on the broadcast highlights.