Isaac Buerger has played the ninth hole at Eagle Crest Resort’s Ridge Course hundreds of times.

Until last week, though, the young golfer from Redmond had never tried to reach the green with a driver.

On the 485-yard par 5, Isaac decided he would use a fortuitous lie in the left rough to his advantage and make a run at the hole with his second shot.

As day slipped into evening and from 271 yards away, the golf prospect — then two days shy of his 12th birthday — pulled out his 9.5-degree driver and hit the shot of his young life.

“It was just a fluffy lie that I just decided, ‘What the heck. I’ll just hit driver,’ ” recalls Isaac.

He continues: “It was getting late, and I saw it (the golf ball) hit the green and I saw it releasing toward the hole.”

Isaac saw the ball disappear around the green, but he did not know the final result.

What his ball did was land at the front of the green, roll some 20 yards and drop into the cup.

“Me and my friend (Jacob Tarkany, an 11-year-old part-time Bend resident) started running toward the hole,” says Isaac. “I first stepped past the hole, and then he said it was in. I looked back, and there it was.”

His reaction?

“I was like, ‘Oh my God! This is awesome!’ ” Isaac says.

“They started jumping around and giving each other five and then pulled the ball out,” recounts Chad Tarkany, Jacob’s dad, who was just yards away. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Do the math and that is 3 under par for the hole. But more commonly that rarest of golf feats is called a “double eagle,” or an “albatross.”

No matter what you call it, it is the result of hitting pay dirt on million-to-one odds and incredible talent. After all, not too many golfers of any age have the ability to drive a par 4 or to reach the green on a par-5 hole in two shots.

Factor in that Isaac did this before even starting the seventh grade (he is home-schooled), and that talent and good fortune become almost unfathomable.

“I’ve never had one (a double eagle), and I’ve played A LOT of golf,” says Ron Buerger, Isaac’s dad and a longtime PGA pro who is director of golf at Eagle Crest. “I don’t know very many golf pros, who have all played a lot of golf, who have ever had one.”

According to the Double Eagle Club, an organization that tracks albatrosses around the world, only 602 double eagles have ever been scored in formal competition.

Just 13 have been reported to The Bulletin since 2008, compared with hundreds of hole-in-one reports.

Despite his tender age, Isaac Buerger is about as good a candidate as any golfer to hit a double eagle.

He has won his division for 10- and 11-year-old boys in three of this summer’s major Oregon Junior Golf Association tournaments. He has dominated Central Oregon Junior Golf Association tournaments, too, even though he has been playing in a division for 12- and 13-year-olds.

He has a hole-in-one to his credit, carding an ace on Eagle Crest’s sixth hole a year ago while preparing for the same season-ending COJGA tournament that he was tuning up for last week when he recorded the double eagle.

As the youngest of four brothers, Isaac has taken to golf like none of his siblings, Ron Buerger says, even though all the boys were introduced to the game as toddlers.

“I don’t really know,” the youngest Buerger says. “I just liked the game. My brothers didn’t like it because they didn’t have the patience for it.”

He must know his game well, because Isaac all but called his albatross.

Chad Tarkany had been challenging the boys with slices of pizza as a reward, and Isaac had collected with a pair of birdies, Tarkany says.

With the wind at his back and that “fluffy lie” on the ninth after a mediocre tee shot, Tarkany recalls that Isaac asked him, “What happens if I get inside 5 feet?”

“If you get inside 5 feet, I’ll buy you a whole pizza and you get to sleep over,” Chad Tarkany replied.

Then?

“He gets it up in the air and it is just a beautiful shot,” recalls Chad Tarkany, himself nearly a scratch player. “I’ve seen a lot of golf shots in a lot of tournaments, mostly on tour and many a major, and I would say that was about the best golf shot I have ever seen.”

Isaac’s recounting of the story is just about what anyone might expect from a 12-year-old. He knows he has accomplished something great but lacks the depth of experience to know just HOW great.

Besides, he already has his eyes on another prize.

His dad promised him a car if Isaac could beat him from the tips — the back tees — by age 16.

“He made that bet with me when I was younger,” says Isaac, as if he knows that his dad made a bad bet.

Any chance Isaac might forget?

“Nope,” the young man replies.

Isaac nearly made good on the bet in May, playing his father to a tie. At age 11.

Something tells me his youngest son’s 16th birthday will be an expensive one for Ron Buerger.