Golf Holes-in-one by a sumo wrestler?

[Sumo Menko Man 13]

Maybe a strange topic for here, but was reading the January 1973 issue of Sumo World and it mentioned that Kasugano Oyakata (former Yokozuna Tochinishikj) was the only man ever in sumo to make a hole in one in golf.  That was 47 years ago, has anyone ever remembered hearing about any other retired or active wrestler having a hole in one since?  Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!

[Yamanashi 3,860]

2 hours ago, Sumo Menko Man said:

Maybe a strange topic for here, but was reading the January 1973 issue of Sumo World and it mentioned that Kasugano Oyakata (former Yokozuna Tochinishikj) was the only man ever in sumo to make a hole in one in golf.  That was 47 years ago, has anyone ever remembered hearing about any other retired or active wrestler having a hole in one since?  Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!

I think Tomozuna-Oyakata (ex-Kyokotenho) plays golf often (though no one does now).

[Katooshu 3,246]

Kasugano stable has a strong golf tradition. Tochinoshin can tell you all about it.....

Edited January 1, 2021 by Katooshu

[Benihana 1,929]

3 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

plays golf often (though no one does now).

Really? No one plays golf now?

[code_number3 706]

1 hour ago, Katooshu said:

Kasugano stable has a strong golf tradition. Tochinoshin can tell you all about it.....

Welcome to Kasugano Golf Club

[pricklypomegranate 730]

28 minutes ago, Benihana said:

Really? No one plays golf now?

@Katooshu Damn, why you gotta drag them like that 

I don't know much about golf, but I do know that the Mongolian rikishi are very avid golfers. Between the three recent Mongolian yokozuna, Hakuho is the most avid and his best is 84 strokes, whatever that means. He hoped to get it below 80. Kakuryu plays often too, but we don't know much else as he has a very reticent personality, and Harumafuji didn't play often because he had injured ankles. Allegedly, the best in recent sumo world was Kyokutenho, whose personal best is 72 strokes. Personally, I'd pay good money to see Ikioi's wife (who is a pro golfer) to hand Hakuho his ass in golf. 

Edited January 1, 2021 by pricklypomegranate

[Benihana 1,929]

Just now, pricklypomegranate said:

I don't know much about golf, but I do know that the Mongolian rikishi are very avid golfers. Between the three recent Mongolian yokozuna, Hakuho is the most avid and his best is 84 strokes, whatever that means. He hoped to get it below 80. Kakuryu plays often too, but we don't know much else as he has a very reticent personality, and Harumafuji didn't play often because he had injured ankles. Allegedly, the best in recent sumo world was Kyokutenho, whose personal best is 72 strokes. Personally, I'd pay good money to see Ikioi's wife (who is a pro golfer) to hand Hakuho his ass in golf. 

I think he meant, that at the moment no one plays golf due to covid.

[pricklypomegranate 730]

1 minute ago, Benihana said:

I think he meant, that at the moment no one plays golf due to covid.

Sorry, I misunderstood. But yeah, I think the information is sufficient to demonstrate that the Mongolians are definitely not at that level where they'll scoring hole-in-ones. I don't think the Japanese rikishi are big golfers too. So Tochinishiki might very well be the only rikishi to score a hole in one, answering @Sumo Menko Man's question. 

[yohcun 401]

1 hour ago, Katooshu said:

Kasugano stable has a strong golf tradition. Tochinoshin can tell you all about it.....

Kasugano-oyakata (Mitch Hedberg) on golf.

 

[Seiyashi 4,097]

2 hours ago, pricklypomegranate said:

I don't know much about golf, but I do know that the Mongolian rikishi are very avid golfers. Between the three recent Mongolian yokozuna, Hakuho is the most avid and his best is 84 strokes, whatever that means. He hoped to get it below 80.

Golf goes relative to the difficulty of a hole, or the "par". The fewer strokes, the better, so it's whether 84/80 is higher or lower than par.

On a standard golf course with 18 holes, that's an average of 4.6 shots per hole. Most 18-hole golf courses have a par around 72 (or 4 shots per hole; a par-4 hole is the most common in golf although par 3s and par 5s are present in significant numbers, but par 6s and 7s much less likely). So it means Hakuho is missing par by a shot every two holes out of three, and is hoping to drop that to less than one out of three. Considering even pro golfers consider it an achievement to complete bogey free rounds, and very few do so in actual competition, that's still pretty impressive.

For the purposes of the original topic, most hole-in-ones occur on par 3s since they're the shortest, but it does take a significant amount of luck for the average golfer (taking into account wind, spin, club selection, etc) to score a hole in one. It's possible to do it on par 4s and 5s of specific layouts if you want to risk going out of bounds, but if you do go OB, that's a shot penalty you'll have to take to restart your play. It'll also depend on your course of choice. Obviously, if you play a course with more par 3s, you'll have a slightly higher chance of hitting holes in one. But if you were a amateur golfer, hitting a hole in one would pretty much be like striking the lottery: it'd really make your day and make you the toast of your golfing flight for a while, but it's not something you can really practice to do.

It's a small sample size, but considering Tochinishiki wasn't the bulkiest of wrestlers even when active, I'm curious to know if there's a correlation between size and golfing technique. My own misspent youth told me golf isn't a case of whacking a ball with a stick as hard as you can. Obviously there's the massive confounder of injuries, but still...

Edited January 1, 2021 by Seiyashi

[Benihana 1,929]

1 hour ago, Seiyashi said:

My own misspent youth told me golf isn't a case of whacking a ball with a stick as hard as you can.

Bryson DeChambeau - and other long hitters - wouldn't agree. Yes, precision is crucial, especially when it comes to putting, but when you are able to hit the ball over obstacles and closer to the green, it's quite an advantage.

Coming back to hole-in-ones, i hope you all have see this, sadly it was only during training.

 

[Seiyashi 4,097]

9 minutes ago, Benihana said:

Bryson DeChambeau - and other long hitters - wouldn't agree. Yes, precision is crucial, especially when it comes to putting, but when you are able to hit the ball over obstacles and closer to the green, it's quite an advantage.

From my own limited experience with the game, courtesy of my dad, technique without strength at least got the ball somewhere, whereas strength without technique results in comedy for everyone else. But yes, once you have gotten the technique in, being able to accelerate the club head faster, ceteris paribus, does result in longer flights.

[Yamanashi 3,860]

3 hours ago, pricklypomegranate said:

Sorry, I misunderstood. But yeah, I think the information is sufficient to demonstrate that the Mongolians are definitely not at that level where they'll scoring hole-in-ones. I don't think the Japanese rikishi are big golfers too. So Tochinishiki might very well be the only rikishi to score a hole in one, answering @Sumo Menko Man's question. 

It helps to be good, but the chance of getting a hole-in-one (even on a par 3 hole) on the first try is infinitesimal.  Therefore, the most effective way to get a hole-in-one is to play a lot of golf.

[Sumo Menko Man 13]

Thanks for the great discussion. According National Hole In One Registry it looks like the odds of the average golfer making a hole-in-one are 12,000 to one and you would have to play 3500 rounds of golf before you got one. Seems like if Kasugano (ex-Tochinishiki) got one back in late 1960s/early 1970s there is a good chance someone in sumo has gotten one since.

[RabidJohn 1,793]

Not a hole in 1, but at the time it held the world record for the longest ever televised putt.

Watch set a world record for the longest successful golf putt ever televised - YouTube

Thing is, it was a pro-am competition and Terry Wogan was the amateur. As in most things that require skill and accuracy, it is possible for the untrained to fluke a shot.

I distinctly remember C4 showing Chiyonofuji playing golf (in civvies, but still with a chon-mage) shortly after he retired. Don't know if he ever holed it in one, but I imagine that's what he had in mind.

Edit: Hmm, has the forum been set so it doesn't auto-embed YT videos now? I'm sure I did nothing different to usual...

Edited January 1, 2021 by RabidJohn

[Seiyashi 4,097]

15 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Edit: Hmm, has the forum been set so it doesn't auto-embed YT videos now? I'm sure I did nothing different to usual...

Might be more than just YT videos - might be code embedding as well. I had merry hell trying to embed a YT video AND a HTML table the other day, but I could swear upside down that I had no issues embedding a HTML table previously.

[Kaninoyama 1,797]

I've had two and I'm a sumo fan. Does that count?

[Katooshu 3,246]

I've been struggling to embed lately too

[Jakusotsu 5,981]

16 hours ago, Benihana said:

Coming back to hole-in-ones, i hope you all have see this, sadly it was only during training.

Nice shot, no doubt, but not a hole-in-one.

[nagora 88]

18 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Not a hole in 1, but at the time it held the world record for the longest ever televised putt.

Watch set a world record for the longest successful golf putt ever televised - YouTube

Thing is, it was a pro-am competition and Terry Wogan was the amateur. As in most things that require skill and accuracy, it is possible for the untrained to fluke a shot.

I distinctly remember C4 showing Chiyonofuji playing golf (in civvies, but still with a chon-mage) shortly after he retired. Don't know if he ever holed it in one, but I imagine that's what he had in mind.

Edit: Hmm, has the forum been set so it doesn't auto-embed YT videos now? I'm sure I did nothing different to usual...

Terry wasn't exactly "untrained" - he was a very keen amateur golfer. I remember the Chiyonofuji piece too. It was around the time of the Royal Albert Hall Basho in '91 which was just a few months after he retired.

According to its website, the RAH Basho was the first official one outside of Japan ever, which might be why Chiyonofuji came over with it and ended up playing golf in front of the C4 cameras.

[sahaven111 176]

On 02/01/2021 at 07:36, nagora said:

 

According to its website, the RAH Basho was the first official one outside of Japan ever

Sounds like a blatant lie from that website to me.

[Benihana 1,929]

11 hours ago, sahaven111 said:

Sounds like a blatant lie from that website to me.

Which other events come to your mind?

[ViscountessNivlac 24]

12 hours ago, sahaven111 said:

Sounds like a blatant lie from that website to me.

They also say Konishiki was the heaviest rikishi ever so who knows what they’re smoking.

[Seiyashi 4,097]

1 hour ago, Benihana said:

12 hours ago, sahaven111 said:

Sounds like a blatant lie from that website to me.

Which other events come to your mind?

I'd say it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a basho is. RAH was more like a jungyo than a basho in format, really.

55 minutes ago, ViscountessNivlac said:

They also say Konishiki was the heaviest rikishi ever so who knows what they’re smoking.

Also, at the time, he was IIRC. It took Orora before his record was surpassed in 2017. The RAH article is in 2012.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Seiyashi

[Jakusotsu 5,981]

3 minutes ago, Seiyashi said:

51 minutes ago, ViscountessNivlac said:

They also say Konishiki was the heaviest rikishi ever so who knows what they’re smoking.

Also, at the time, he was IIRC.

He still is, according to sumodb. 285 kg is the largest weight ever recorded there.

Of course there's Manny Yarbrough, but he was never in Ozumo.