I read in a paper that the chance of getting a hole in one are 12,500 to 1. The article continued that to get 4 holes in one is (1/125000) to the power of four.
Why does the chance decrease per attempt? The universe doesn’t know you’ve had one or two or three results already so why are increasing holes in one less likely?
I see that intuitively this might be the case, but I’m not fully convinced. Part of me believes that the chance of getting any number of holes in on should be 12,500 to 1.
In: 1
Your chance of getting a hole in one is 1/12500
Your chance of getting a second hole in one on the next hole is also 1/12500 because the two events are independent.
But the odds of both happening in a row are 1/12500 *times* 1/12500 since you’re asking about the odds of it happening twice in a row.
Four times in a row is (1/12500)^4 – a very small number that only the world’s greatest golfer (Kim Jong-Il) could ever hope to get.
Now getting 4/18 in a typical round of golf is a slightly more complex equation than 4 in a row, since you’re allowed multiple different permutations of 4/18. It’s been too long since my last stats class to work that one out.
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