Meet Charlie Myers and Derek Strine, the two LIers who hit albatrosses in the last week

Holing the second shot on a par 5 for an albatross (or double eagle) is an extremely rare event in the golf world. But within the last week two Long Islanders accomplished the feat.

Charlie Myers of Bellerose Village did it on the fourth hole of the Wheatley Hills Golf Club on June 11 and Derek Strine of Bayport did it on the third hole of the Red Course at Timber Point on June 12.

The Double Eagle Club, a registry for such rarities, estimates the odds of a player recording an albatross at 6 million-to-1. So the odds of two players making one so close together are astronomical.

Myers nailed his drive about 320 yards on the 565-yard hole at Wheatley, helped by a following wind.

"The next shot is completely blind, but the cart [GPS] said 243," Myers said. "It was a little downwind so I pulled a 4-hybrid where I would usually pull a 3-hybrid. I struck it really well with a little draw on it."

When the group got to the green, they didn’t see a ball. "Someone said look in the hole, like you’ve heard a thousand times, and there it was," said Myers, a 22-year-old and recent graduate of Penn State with a degree in economics. He sports a 3.9 handicap.

Strine, a 21-year-old from Bayport who just completed his junior year at Binghamton University, was playing the third hole on Timber Point Red from a forward tee at about 455 yards.

"Off the tee I hit it 260, which is an average drive for me," said Strine, who has an 11.1 handicap. "I had 195 in so I grabbed a 6-iron because I was hitting the ball really well. I hit a nice medium draw. We saw it take two hops and heard the twang of the flagstick. All of the sudden my buddies start freaking out, ‘Dude, that just went in, that just went in.’ "

Strine said he couldn’t see that far and didn’t want to get his hopes up. But after his partners hit their approach shots he ran up to the green.

"I ran up there, reached down and picked the ball out of the cup and we all started going wild," Strine said. "A really cool experience."