Three aces on No. 16 in one round? Believe it

Davis Love III and Webb Simpson heard the roar, but was it the hole-in-one kind?

Love thought about it, about how loud it sounded and how it came from No. 16 – the home for aces. It had to be one.

Love was right – Shane Lowry aced the hole with an 8-iron. But two pairings later, Love aced No. 16 as well. Then, Louis Oosthuizen got a hole-in-one when his ball bumped into J.B. Holmes’ but continued to roll into the hole.

“I was just hoping that it was my ball that was in and not J.B.’s because then neither of us would have a hole in one, he would have had to move his ball back,” Oosthuizen said.

It’s the first time in Masters history one hole had three aces in the same day, let alone in one tournament. It’s only the second time one Masters has seen three aces throughout the course (2004 had two on No. 16 and one on No. 4).

“I was thinking it was a hole-in-one,” said Love, captain of the 2016 U.S. Ryder Cup team. “When we got down there, and heard what a hole-in-one roar sounds like, we said, ‘Wow, that was really loud down here.’ We were pretty sure somebody had made one.”

Lowry and then Love both aced the 16th hole – the first hole-in-one in the tournament since Jamie Donaldson got one on No. 6 by using a 7-iron in 2013.

Even before Sunday, the par-3 16th already had by far the most aces on the course, with Lowry’s and Love’s the 16th and 17th. No. 6 is second with five holes-in-one.

After Lowry holed his ace with his 8-iron, he picked up the ball and pretended to throw it to the crowd, only to pocket it.

He’s keeping this one.

“That will definitely go in a frame somewhere in the house,” Lowry said.

The 16th hadn’t seen a hole-in-one since Adam Scott and Bo Van Pelt in 2012.

Love’s ace made up for an earlier missed chance for crystal – he missed a 20-foot putt for eagle on the par-5 13th. Simpson did make his putt, a 14-footer, for an eagle.

“I was thinking, ‘We need to get some crystal,’ and then Webb made his putt and I didn’t get a putt at it at 15,” Love said. “I was kind of disappointed that I spent the whole week here and didn’t win anything.”

Love had to wait only a few more holes to get the crystal. “It was a great way to finish my Masters,” he said.