The Australian fans are among the most passionate and loudest in the world of golf, and this Saturday they will have an extra million reasons. The BMW Australian PGA Championship is preparing one of the most striking moves on the calendar in terms of audience interaction. The start of the season on the DP World Tour is packed.
We are talking about the return of the Royal Queensland Dabble Million-Dollar Hole-in-One with a proposal as simple as it is explosive: if a professional makes a hole-in-one on Saturday, 29th November between 11:00 and 16:00, a million dollars will be shared among all the fans registered at the 17th hole. The idea is to turn the audience into a direct protagonist of a prize that can change lives and will turn each tee-off into a real festival.
A tense 125-metre shot where each player and the audience will be one soul in search of the coveted hole-in-one. A year ago, Marco Penge came within a whisker of achieving it. He flew directly over the flag, but the backspin effect was slightly to the right, leaving him just shy of being the most beloved man in Queensland. Will it be one of the seven Spaniards present this week?
As mentioned, the setting is the same as twelve months ago, once again the Dabble Party Hole, the noisiest par 3 of the tournament, where the stands surround the green like a stadium and where up to eight thousand fans can create an atmosphere that has little comparison on the circuit.
The audience will not only cheer for their local players, they are also playing for their own share of the loot, and that changes everything, as Michael McDonald, commercial director of the PGA of Australia, acknowledged: “On Saturday, they will not only cheer for their favourites, they will cheer for themselves,” a phrase that perfectly sums up the essence of this action.
We’ll see if in 2025 the tide turns and the 17th hole brings luck.
