Eddie Pepperell had taken a while to get into his round at Rinkven International on Thursday. The 35-year-old Englishman was at one-under through 14 when he stepped to the tee of the par-3 15th, the watery short hole at the back of the property, and pulled a club he intended to draw at the centre-left of the green. The ball did exactly what he asked of it. It started right of the flag, drew gently back, landed in the slope above the cup and turned.
The DP World Tour broadcast cameras held on the ball as it tracked toward the hole. Pepperell stood on the tee with the club at his hip and looked across at his caddie. The ball did the rest.
"It's gone in," the booth shouted. "Brilliant stuff."
The hole-in-one was the fourth of Pepperell's professional career and the third on the DP World Tour, following one at Walton Heath several years ago and another at the 2025 Magical Kenya Open. He took a fourth at the par-3 fifteenth at Kingsbarns in 2022. The most recent one was a year ago at Karen Country Club in Nairobi. The Soudal Open ace at Rinkven is, by his own laughing admission to playing partner Jamie Donaldson on the green, becoming a routine for him.
The context is what gave the ace its weight on Thursday. The Soudal Open is Pepperell's 300th start on the DP World Tour, a number that has stood as a quiet sub-plot to his career for a season now. The 2018 Qatar Masters and British Masters champion has been a tour staple for more than a decade and one of the more recognisable voices in golf broadcasting on the side, but the playing form has been thinner since his second-tier finish at the 2018 Open Championship.
The shot dropped him to 4-under for the day and, with the rest of his back nine, into the top of the leaderboard chase behind Zander Lombard. The South African set the early bench mark with a bogey-free 63 — also 8-under — to finish the round one shot clear of Denmark's Jacob Skov Olesen and his compatriot Richard Sterne, both at 64.
Pepperell's afternoon read as a player who finally felt his rhythm catch up to him. Birdies at 10 and 11 preceded the ace at 15. "Took him a while to get going today, but my word, he's now having quite the back nine," the commentary booth said as Pepperell's name climbed the board.
On the green, Pepperell handed his playing partner Jamie Donaldson a deadpan moment that summed up his style. He walked toward the cup with his putter in hand. The commentary booth caught it instantly: "No need for the putter, Jamie, because Eddie Pepperell will pick the ball out of the hole. Lovely. Yeah, that's funny, Jamie, just a little force of habit there, was it, walking up to the green? Yes, I did put the whip whip maybe — maybe take the putter out."
The Englishman is now well within touching distance of a leaderboard he has not been near as often as his caddie would like. Whether the ace propels him into a weekend run or remains a moment of celebration on a milestone start will be decided over the next three days at Rinkven, where the scoring has been low and the wind has been forecast to pick up.
What is settled is the line in his statistical column. Four professional hole-in-ones. Three on the DP World Tour. One on his 300th start. "That's a perfect hole-in-one. Right at it, perfect pace. There's nothing lucky about that. That was a gem of a golf shot, Eddie," the broadcast said. A gem, Pepperell will hope, of a week to come.
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*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/eddie-pepperell-hole-in-one-soudal-open-2026-rinkven-300th-dp-world-tour-start). Visit for full coverage.*
