Peter Malnati makes third PGA TOUR ace during final round at Texas Children's Houston Open

Peter Malnati snapped an eight-year winless drought last Sunday when he won the Valspar Championship.

He ended a seven-year drought this Sunday, making an ace on the par-3 seventh hole at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. It was Malnati’s third career hole-in-one and first since 2017.

"I said I'm going to hit the same shot I hit on 17th hole at the Valspar Championship on Sunday," Malnati said. "I'm going to aim it right at the TV tower, I'm going to let the wind do the rest. And I hit this beautiful 5-iron, it was so nice and it was a perfect yardage."

When he stepped onto the seventh tee, 11 shots back, Malnati was far from contention. But that wasn’t his goal. Coming off his life-changing victory filled with emotion at Innisbrook Resort last week, Malnati’s only goal was to make the cut this week at Memorial Park Golf Course.

He met that goal, then felt a bit of that euphoria again during his final round, albeit well outside of contention. His approach on the 223-yard par-3 seventh landed on the front of the green, trundled all the way to the back pin location, and dropped in for the ace. It moved Malnati back to 2-under, even-par for the final round.

"There was a smattering of people behind the green and half of them went 'Woooo!' and the other half just sat completely still. We were like, oh, that was kind of like a really close 'woooo.' So we didn't know it went in until we got up to the green and it was crazy," Malnati said.

Malnati has two other holes-in-one on the PGA TOUR (2017 RBC Canadian Open and 2016 Wyndham Championship).