When Tommy Fleetwood made a 10 on the sixth hole at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill on Friday, dumping his second, fourth, and sixth shots in the water before finally finding the putting surface with his eighth, it was a pretty safe bet his quintuple bogey—that’s 5 over par on one hole—would stand up as the worst score of the weekend. But if you placed a wager on someone making an even worse score, congratulations—you probably just made yourself a tidy chunk of change!
Enter Jake Knapp, who’s already found the winner’s circle once this year, at the Mexico Open, but almost certainly won’t this week thanks to the 12 he carded on that same sixth hole. Knapp took a different route than Fleetwood, finding trouble right off the tee box: his first two attempts found the water, while his third couldn’t be found at all. He eventually found the fairway, the green, and the bottom of the cup, but not before recording a septuple bogey—7 over! Fleetwood and Knapp’s Everyman struggles beg the question: what are some other noteworthy high scores from golf tournaments past?
Daly, Armour, Na All Went Higher Than Knapp
As covered by Julio Valdera in this space yesterday, John Daly once scored an 18, also in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, and also on the sixth hole! Tommy Armour holds the dubious record for worst individual score ever recorded on the PGA Tour, making a 23 at the 1927 Shawnee Open, just a week after he won his first major title, a U.S. Open victory at Oakmont.
In fact, Fleetwood, Knapp, or anyone else on the Tour has their work cut out for them if they want to make the top—or bottom, as it were—5 scores. The other unfortunate souls who round out the top 5? Gary McCord, Kevin Na, and Ed Oliver with matching 16’s, George Bayer with a 17, and Ray Ainsley, Dale Douglass, and Hans Merrell with 19 each. As rough a shape as my golf game is in, I can honestly say I’ve never recorded any of these scores—but only because I can’t count that high.
One would think Tommy Armour’s record is safe for another tournament, but there’s an entire round still to play in Orlando…
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