An amateur golfer hit her fourteenth hole in one in four months yesterday. And she did it in style – in front of a television crew that had been sent to check out if her claims for the other 13 were true.

Jacqueline Gagne, who took up golf only 4½ years ago, has smashed all the game’s known records in an incredible run that began on January 23 when she hit her first hole in one of the year at her club in California.

“People were becoming a little sceptical, so to have hit the fourteenth in front of the cameras yesterday was just perfect,” Ms Gagne said.

Her golfing feats seem so unlikely that even the sports reporter on her local paper, who started writing about her holes in one after she reached number seven exactly a month ago, said that she had begun to give him sleepless nights.

Larry Bohannan said he had tracked down witnesses to every hole in one, many of which Ms Gagne scored during competitions, and each claim checked out.

The witnesses he spoke to included three who saw number ten, when the ball bounced off a tree, on to the green and into the cup.

“It seems impossible, but the witnesses insist they happened,” Mr Bohannan said. “All the people at Mission Hills [her club], even the ones who are sick to the stomach, have to concede they happened.”

The odds of achieving 14 holes in one in four months are almost impossible to calculate. When Ms Gagne hit her tenth, Michael McJilton, a statistician near Palm Springs, had a stab and came up with 12 septillion (that’s 12 followed by 24 zeroes) to one.

Last week the 46-year-old golfer hit two holes in one in the same round, at the Silver Rock Resort in La Quinta. There were multiple witnesses. One was on the par 3, 140-yard eighth hole, on which she hit a 7 iron; the other was on the 95-yard fourteenth, where she sank a pitching wedge.

Ms Gagne, who ran a computer business until she retired four years ago, said: “When I first started hitting these holes in one I would ring up my friends and say, drinks are on me. I buy Dom Pérignon. It’s $250 [£125] a bottle. I have spent several thousand dollars on Dom Pérignon this year.”

When she moved to Rancho Mirage, in the desert two hours east of Los Angeles, she had never played golf. “But that’s all there is to do out here in the desert,” said Ms Gagne, who plays five or six times a week off a seven handicap.

She freely admitted that her fourteenth hole in one yesterday did not really count, because it was not during a proper round, but happened as she was hitting some balls for the ABC camera crew. With 13 genuine ones, she has hit only five fewer than the total achieved by the entire Ladies Professional Golf Association last year.

To date, Tiger Woods has hit 18. Jack Nicklaus hit 20 in his career. A US amateur, Norman Manley, claims a career total – and world record – of 59.

Mike Mitchell, who has been coaching Ms Gagne for the past year, said that the holes in one had been verified “through multiple sources”, and added: “It’s amazing.”

He said that after playing competitive golf for 30 years, he had hit 14, which until now had seemed a pretty good effort.

Down in one

Oldest Elsie McLean, 102, from Chico, California, last month

Youngest Keith Long, 5, on a Mississippi golf course in 1998. Tiger Woods was 6 when he hit his first hole in one

Most in a lifetime 59, claimed by Norman Manley, an American

Longest 517 yards, by Mike Crean of Denver, Colorado, in 2002

Sources: ESPN, Hole in One Register, Boston Herald, Golf Digest

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