Rothley Park reflect on world record success
AFTER many weeks of careful verification Rothley Park Golf Club has received its framed certificate and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest ever 18 holes recorded by a team of golfers.
Members who took part in the memorable day were invited to join 2021 Club Captains, Alan Dorn and Jenny Piecha, at a presentation evening and enjoy reminiscing about the amazing day back in August.
The previous record – set by Farnham Golf Club in 2015, an astonishing 13 MINUTES 42 SECONDS, was smashed by Rothley Park with an amazing time of 12 MINUTES 42 SECONDS.
The fairways were flooded with players of all handicap categories, all of who wanted to help achieve the goal and also raise money for the Captains’ charities.
The GWR criteria was quite strict and required independent witnesses to ensure the attempt was played within the rules of golf and the whole event had to be filmed, which was no mean feat for the cameramen to keep up with the pace of play from a moving buggy!
The charities are close to the hearts of both Captains. Alan, who suffers from hearing loss chose Meniere’s Society, which supports and helps sufferers with hearing difficulties and Jenny chose Lyme Disease UK, because her daughter has suffered with this debilitating disease for the last 28 years.
The format was teams positioned around all 18 holes at the start.
The ball was driven off the first tee and players placed on the fairway hit the next shot until the ball was on the green. Once the ball was in the hole a signal was given to the person waiting on the second tee, to tee off immediately. This method proceeded around the course in a relay format until the ball was finally putted into the hole on the 18th.
During the week before the actual attempt took place, a practice run was organised over 5 holes 14 – 18, to allow the camera crew to have a very important dummy run to assess the accuracy of their timings and film crew positions.
It was also a valuable exercise to give the players a feel for how the actual record attempt would playout. Those who took part found this practice run immensely useful. It was a surprise to everyone how enjoyable and exciting it was. Those who were understandably sceptical saw that breaking the record was actually possible!
It was intended to only have 4 attempts on the day and everyone was briefed accordingly. The first attempt achieved a time of 15 mins 11 secs which was extremely encouraging. The second attempt was still promising at 15 min 15 secs with a third attempt missing by only 7 seconds coming in at 13 mins 49 secs. However, disaster struck when on the 4th, and supposed last, attempt breaking the record was missed by an agonising 1 second.
Everyone was starting to leave the course feeling hugely disappointed but the Captains made the decision to give it one last throw of the dice and rallied everyone together to go back out to their positions and give it one more shot.
On the fifth and final attempt they smashed the record by an astonishing 1 minute 2 seconds!
Alex Frith was the brave man who tee’d off on the first hole and the Captains sealed the deal by putting the ball in the hole on the 18th. A great achievement by all who took part and a very memorable day.