People travel from all over the world to attend or play in the Masters tournament. For one week in the year, the entire golf world comes to Georgia.
For number 8 in our countdown series, we’re travelling from Augusta to Europe, where two men hold the record for most rounds of golf played in different countries in a single day.
Two men from Belgium played 18-hole rounds of golf in eight different countries in one 24-hour period in 2013.
An early start
It’s amazing how much you can get done in a day when you get up a little earlier than usual, isn’t it?
Kasper De Wulf and Alexander Hautekiet started their record-breaking day with a very early 2.30 am tee off in Tarvisio Golf and Country Club in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of north-eastern Italy. The club, just 6 kilometres from the Austrian border, sits at the foot of the Alps and offers some truly stunning views.
From Italy, they played in various courses in neighbouring Slovenia and Austria before heading north to Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
According to Guinness World Records, the pair finished their final round in their home country of Belgium at 1.01am on the 25th of June 2013 at Damme Golf and Country Club. One of Belgium’s largest golf clubs, Damme GCC has 27 Championship holes and 9 Compact holes to its name.
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They were keeping score, too. De Wulf won overall in their stroke play match, hitting a 727 over the course of the day. Hautekiet posted the day’s lowest round with an 80 at their second stop in Bled, Slovenia.
The proximity of national borders in Europe makes such a feat possible. It’s hard to image that golfers in other parts of the world could tick off so many countries in one day.
How many times can you play golf in a day?
The all-time record for most holes played in a single day goes to former Major League Baseball star Eric Byrnes in Half Moon Bay, California. He walked 105 miles and used glow-in-the-dark balls to play 420 holes in 24 hours. He played more than 23 rounds of golf that day to raise money for the Let Them Play Foundation, a charity in California that offers scholarships to youth sports groups so that they can buy sports equipment.
Back to Augusta, where it will be about quality rather than quantity next week as we see the first tee off in just 8 short days.
This article is part of our Countdown to The Masters series. Join us every day between now and April 7 for fun facts and interesting stories about golf and The Masters tournament.