Is this the most shots ever recorded on a single golf hole? Golfer has nightmare at amateur event

Sometimes with this beautiful, frustrating, ludicrous game of ours you just have to kick back after a round and wonder what on earth happened out there.

That was no doubt how Diane Ventling felt after competing in the Wine Country Amateur on Monday after having a nightmare to end all nightmares.

Ventling – who, according to the US Am Tour website, has been named the circuit’s Player of the Year in the 20+ handicap division after winning eight of the 14 events so far this season – needed 29 strokes to complete the par-5 16th hole at Sonoma Golf Club in California.

Twenty. Nine.

The crazy thing is the 70-year-old wasn’t playing that bad up until that point. She had reached the turn 7-over-par to keep herself well in the tournament, but she had two more double-bogeys and a triple-bogey before disaster struck.

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While there is plenty of detail on offer, sadly there is no shot-by-shot tracker on the US Am Tour. But Sonoma Golf Club, which describes itself as “a golden age vintage” which was “designed by Sam Whiting in an era when jazz was king and golf attire featured ties and plus fours” and “is as true to the tenets of the game today as it was nearly 100 years ago, with the benefit of the most modern technology and agronomy practices”, says its 544-yard 16th is “intimidating”.

It adds that the tee shot “has to avoid trees left and a large bunker right” before telling golfers to “favour the right side to open the dogleg” and that “bunkers and wastelands on both sides make your second shot a challenge”.

“Your approach shot,” it says, “is to one of the largest greens on the course”, but “beware – if you go over it, a sure bogey or worse awaits”.

We can only assume Ventling went over the green…

Anyway, here’s that all-important scorecard in all its glory:

The hole, according to the stats, yielded one par from the eight players in what they Tiger Flight, as well as three bogeys, three double bogeys and one “other”. Because who wants to work out what a 24-over-par is called, right?

It also prompted this great response from journalist Ryan French, who runs the popular Monday Q Info account on X:

Pretty easy. Missed a 6 footer for 28 https://t.co/xHh185JWrG

— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) July 23, 2024

I mean, surely at some point – I’m going to say around the 11th or 12th shot – you just get yourself back on the fairway and putt your way home.

Anyway, it meant Ventling, at 42-over-par, finished last in the eight-player tournament, which was won by Phillip Knowles’ 13-over 85.

Despite the 29, Ventling actually only finished one back of seventh-placed Steve van Someren, whose 41-over score of 113 was enough to keep him off the foot of the leaderboard.

So, is this the most shots ever recorded on a single golf hole? Let us know if you’ve heard of worse…

Alex Perry is the Associate Editor of bunkered. A journalist for more than 20 years, he has been a golf industry stalwart for the majority of his career and, in a five-year spell at ESPN, covered every sporting event you can think of. He completed his own Grand Slam at the 2023 Masters, having fallen in love with the sport at his hometown club of Okehampton and on the links of nearby Bude & North Cornwall.

Associate Editor