Kim’s two previous attempts playing the penultimate hole had resulted in a double bogey and a bogey, but he arrived on the tee having birdied the 16th, his first since the short Postage Stamp eighth, but at seven over for the tournament. 

He landed his tee shot short of the green and as it rolled up, it tracked all the way to hole. 

The previous longest hole-in-one at the Open was the 212-yard ace Frank Lickliter II made at the fifth  at Royal Lytham and St Annes in 2001.

“My caddie told me ‘you’d better hit hard with a three-iron’ so I did and as soon as I made good contact, I saw the ball over the fringe, thinking, ‘that must be maybe inside 20 feet’,” he said. 

“Then people were yelling at me, as I didn’t realise the ball went in. It was amazing. I had plenty of holes-in-one in my life, maybe over 10 times, but I think this is the most memorable hole-in-one because it’s a major and The Open and I was having a hard time on the front nine. 

“I was feeling terrible about my shots [at the hole] the last couple of days. I made double Thursday and I made three-putt again yesterday: finally I got the hole-in-one, so I think I like it now.” 

The tradition after an ace is to buy drinks for everyone, but Kim was not aware of that.

“I have to buy Korean barbecue, but it’s not my country, so maybe I get fish and chips for my team,” he said.