Accrington bookie Steve Ion has defied "impossible" odds by acing two par four holes at a Lancashire golf club.

And the 33-year-old former Manchester Giants basketball star is convinced it’s never been achieved in Britain.

"I’ve trawled the website and there’s nothing to indicate it has been done before," said the 17 handicapper.

His first shot-in-a-million came last June when he arrowed a three wood into the cup at the 289-yard sixth at Oak Royal Golf and Country Club in Withnell, near Chorley.

Big-hitting Ion, who quit basketball because of injury and then played 10-pin bowls for the county before taking up golf two years ago, repeated the feat at the 325-yard uphill second during a captain’s qualifying competition last weekend.

This time he used a driver and thought he’d lost the ball when he reached the green.

"I was searching the rough when my playing companion Joe Melvin jokingly said he’d check the hole.

"I don’t know which of us was shocked the most when he found it lying there," he said.

"It helped my score because I’d had a quadruple bogey seven at the first after going out of bounds."

The 6ft 4ins 17 stone player, who manages a series of bookies across the region including Greater Manchester, admitted: "It’s impossible to work out the odds of what I’ve done. I think you’ve more chance of winning the Lotto jackpot!"

Flamboyant Ion, who can’t be mistaken on the course because he wears multi-coloured trousers of the type popularised by American John Daly, claimed his longest drive to date in 399 yards.

He is the first member of the club to record an ace since it opened in 2008.

Meanwhile, the R&A Golfer’s Handbook list only one player to have achieved the feat - Californian N L Manley had successive holes-in-one at Del Valle Country Club, Saugus, in 1964, which was described as a "miracle."

ACCRINGTON’S teenager golfer Nikki Foster, who also plays at Pleasington, crashed out of the English Women’s Championship at Broadstone when she lost 5&4 against Ferndown’s Hayley Davis in the quarter-final.