Glenwood City resident Jack Bennett appears on Holey Moley reality show
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JACK BENNETT, sports his shiney new green jacket from his win on ABC’s Holey Moley. —photo submitted
By Missy Klatt
Fans of the ABC reality show, Holey Moley may have noticed a local connection when Glenwood City resident, Jack Bennett appeared on episode six of season three that aired on July 22nd. Jack and his wife, Debbie, are fairly recent additions to Glenwood City having moved here in 2013 to be closer to their daughter and her family who live in New Richmond or as Jack puts it “to chase the kids”. They are originally from the Milwaukee area.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ABC show that is hosted by Rob Riggle and Joe Tessitore and boast Steph Curry as one of its executive producers and resident golf pro. It can best be described as mini golf on steroids or as Bennett describes it as a cross between mini golf and Wipe Out (another ABC reality show). “Contestants put their miniature golf–and physical–skills to the test as they face off in out-of-this-world challenges on a supersized course” is how the show is described on the ABC website.
During the show it was stated that Bennet was there to avenge his son Chad’s early loss in season one. As Jack was quoted on the show, “I’m here to right the wrongs.”
When asked how Chad first got on the show it seems that Jack is an actor having done over 350 parts in film and print over the last 30 years. He has done character parts, training films, voice over work, commercials and bit parts in TV and Movies. He has been on “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol”, a crime reenactment show, “Unsolved Mysteries” hosted by Robert Stack, “Junkyard Mega Wars” which is a competition show where you have to build stuff in twelve hours from the junkyard, just to name a few. As such he gets emails and notices when shows or producers are looking for people. The company Mystic Arch who develop a lot of reality tv sent out a notice that they were looking for golfers for this new show, Holey Moley. So Bennett called his son, Chad who is a golf pro, and said why don’t you try out for it. Since it was the first season the show thought why not get a real golfer on there.
Then after Chad did so poorly, the next fall Bennett got the brain storm, “I could do at least that bad” so he called the producer and said that he could avenge the name of the Bennetts. He states that he comes from a long line of golfers. Everyone in his family golfs except his wife. He also mentioned that both his parents golfed well into their eighties. And now his grandkids who are nine and twelve are getting to be pretty good golfers according to Bennett.
When asked if he ever golfs out at Glen Hills, Bennett had this to say; “Interestingly enough the first time I’ve ever been there…I would love to golf more but life gets in the way… the first time I golfed there was with my two grandkids about two weeks ago. It’s a spectacular course. It’s really, really nice.” He said that via his son Chad he has been to some top end courses around the country and he states that Glen Hills is “right up there.” He plans to go back as soon as time permits.
As for the show, season two had already been cast so the producer said to get a hold of them next year, which took him to March 2020 and Covid. So it was thru Zoom auditions and meetings that he worked his way through all the people (1,000s of people auditioned). Bennett states that besides all the auditions there are lengthy back ground checks to be on these shows.
On the show Bennett is promoted as a 64 year old Zamboni driver. He said they always try to find something interesting to associate with you. Bennett although not currently driving the Zamboni, did at a rink in New Richmond.
The show starts with eight contestants who battle one on one and the winners move on to the next round. In Bennett’s first round he was paired up with Tiana a PGA executive on the Corn Hole. After each golfer took their first stroke they then had to run past this giant ear of corn without getting knocked into a big area of foam pieces when the corn “popped”, sending out what essentially looked like air bags exploding. Tiana ran first and soon found herself in the foam. Bennet actually got a little vertigo when he looked up too quickly and ran into the side of the cob and fell in. In the end Bennet won the hole in three strokes, including the penalty stroke for falling into the foam.
In round two, Bennet faced off against the young and agile, Ace Green at the Dutch Courage, a flaming windmill. After your first stroke the idea was to run through the windmill blades without getting knocked off into the water. Ace went first and tanked his shot getting it stuck in the middle of the windmills. He made it past the first flaming blade without getting knocked off so he could get his ball to the other side. Safely on the other side it was now Bennett’s turn for his first putt. One putt was all he needed as he sank a hole in one through the flaming windmills. To say Bennett and the hosts were a little excited is a bit of an understatement.
Bennett believes that his was the first Hole in One up ‘til then in the shows history except for the final competition in season two where they had to keep putting until they made the hole in one.
So Bennett was now on to the final round that had him going up against Jamie, the Hippie Camper at King Arthur’s Court. Both Bennett and Jamie made it safely through the joust without being knocked off and incurring any penalties. So now it was down to who could get their ball in the hole in the fewest strokes and that was Bennet who only needed two strokes to sink the putt.
Bennet was presented with a golden putter and received a green jacket. He also earned the right to come back in the finale to try and win $250,000. Of course he was unable to tell us how that final went but if all goes well the finale should be aired some time later in August.
Filming for this season and actually season four as well took place in March in Valencia, California.
His family had no idea how well he did until the show aired in July. Although his son-in-law figured that he did pretty well as Bennett had his daughter organize a watch party for his family in New Richmond. His son-in-law said he never would have planned the party if he hadn’t done well. Just how well he did we will have to wait a few more weeks to see.
In the meantime, Bennett has been keeping busy with work and assorted activities which include playing the guitar, playing pool, and flipping houses. That last activity has landed him and his other son, Brandon on another reality show, this time for Netflix that has the code name “Three Offers” where you try and pitch your house to a panel of three realtors, similar to a Shark Tank panel. This show is still in production so at this time he doesn’t have any idea when it will get aired.
If you missed it and would like to see the Holey Moley episode that Bennett was on just go to abc.com or Hulu to watch it.
