Half the challenge in setting a Guinness World Record seems to be coming up with a new bizarre idea, writes BRENDAN BARRATT.
Midway through last year, a group of golfers at Zwartkop Country Club, outside Pretoria, set a world record for the fastest round of golf.
Verified by Guinness World Records, the team spread out across the 18-hole course and took turns hitting shots, in order. They completed 18 holes in 11 minutes 55 seconds – shaving almost a minute off the previous mark.
Like most endeavours, golfers have come up with some truly bizarre records that will in all likelihood be challenged and beaten. Here are some of the strangest.
Fastest individual round
Speed golf is a sport of its own and scores are calculated through shots taken and the time it takes to finish 18 holes. However, the fastest round of golf played by one golfer was set by Irishman James Carvill, who completed his round – with the ball having to come to rest completely before the next stroke is taken – in 27 minutes and nine seconds.
Longest shot
Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin took the opportunity to send a golf ball into orbit during a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station in February 2006. According to Nasa estimations, the ball would orbit for about three days before burning up in the atmosphere, achieving a distance of two million kilometres. Guinness World Records recognises the longest official shot on earth as a tee shot of 471 metres by 64-year-old Mike Austin in 1974 at the US Senior National Open Qualifier. More bizarrely, he was using a 43.5-inch steel-shafted persimmon wood driver.
Most golf
We’ve got a few golf nuts here in South Africa who record over 300 rounds of golf in a year, but none come remotely close to Canadian Chris Adam, who played some 14 626 holes in one year – the equivalent of 812.5 rounds. He did it all at King Kamehameha Golf Club in Wailuku, Hawaii, which must have been sick to death of the guy.
Most golf courses played in a year
Canadians Cathie and Jonathon Weaver played a staggering 449 courses during a calendar year. The pair played all across Canada and the USA, averaging 8.6 courses per week. That is next-level commitment right there.
Fastest golf cart
Most golf carts are capped at a maximum speed of around 20km/h. This is almost certainly a good thing, given how golfers transform into racecar drivers the moment they leave the cart house. In 2014, a souped-up golf cart in the US – where else? – maxed out at 191km/h at the Darlington Dragway in Hartsville, South Carolina. No word on how long the battery lasted, though …
Lowest score with one club
American Thad Daber managed to shoot a round of 2-under-par 70 using only a 6-iron during the 1987 World One Club Championship in North Carolina.
Most rounds played in different countries in one day
Back in 2013, Belgian mates Alexander Hautekiet and Kasper De Wulf played eight full rounds of golf in one day – in eight countries. The pair played in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Belgium.
Most consecutive bounces of a golf ball off the head of a ball-peen hammer
Just bouncing it once off the back of a machinist’s hammer is tough enough, but Micheal Lavery of California managed to do it 481 consecutive times. No surprise that he’s held on to that record since 2017.
Most golf balls in a mouth
Probably not a great idea to try at home, given that golf balls are a serious choking hazard, but credit must go to rubber-mouthed Dinesh Shivnath Upadhyaya, from India, who put no fewer than five golf balls into his mouth at the same time.
Most golf balls hit in 10 seconds
Welshman Mark Evans owns this record, having hit 37 golf balls in 10 seconds. We are not talking about full swings here, instead, Evans films himself rapidly chipping balls into a net in his backyard, using a kids’ golf club and dressed in a green onesie. Riveting viewing.
Most golf balls held in one hand for 10 seconds
Another record held by a Canadian (admittedly they do have lots of spare time for a couple of months a year) – Guillaume Doyon managed to hold 24 balls in his gigantic mitt back in 2009.
Longest putt holed
Fergus Muir’s 114-metre putt record was under serious threat when YouTubing team How Ridiculous took over the Point Water Golf Course in Western Australia. Sure enough, team member Brett Stanford drained the 120-metre putt and sent the boys off into a frenzy.
– This column first appeared in the March 2023 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
