GILBERT, Ariz. — Jennifer Song made the third ace of the 2024 LPGA Tour season on Friday at the Ford Championship presented by KCC, holing out on the par-3 14th hole from 160 yards with her 8-iron.
Song joins Chinese amateur Yijia Ren, who holed out on 16 in the final round of the Blue Bay LPGA, and Danielle Kang, who made the 17th ace of her life on the 11th hole last week at Palos Verdes Golf Club, as the only other player to record a hole-in-one so far this season.
It was the 10th time in her life that the 34-year-old has made a hole-in-one and is her third career ace since she joined the LPGA Tour in 2011, but it was the first time that Song has ever seen one of her holes-in-one actually go in, making the cool moment even more special for the LPGA Tour veteran.
“I had 158 to the flag, and the wind was kind of blowing right to left from behind,” said Song, whose last hole-in-one on the LPGA Tour came in 2018. “I was trying to decide whether I should hit a solid 8, or controlled 7. I'm like, I’ve got to make something happen, so I'll just hit the shorter one because the greens were firming up in the afternoon. So, I just hit a really solid 8, and it just went in the hole.”
With the hole out, CME Group will be making a $20,000 donation on behalf of Song to their CME Group Cares Challenge – Score 1 for St. Jude, raising the 2024 donation total to $60,000. The Challenge is a season-long charitable giving program that turns aces into donations with a minimum guaranteed donation of $500,000 to St. Jude's, which is leading the way in how the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and life-threatening diseases.
While recording her first hole-in-one on the LPGA Tour in six years was an incredible feeling for Song, she is also grateful that she gets to contribute $20,000 to childhood cancer treatment and research, a cause that Song is happy to see CME Group and the Tour supporting.
“I think it's amazing,” Song said. “I think we're always really proud to support a good cause, and I think it's going to help a lot of people, so I'm really happy about that.”
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