The Loop

Former MLB player sets speed golf world record for most holes played in 24 hours

April 23, 2019
Arizona Diamondbacks v Atlanta Braves

Scott Cunningham

Baseball's pace? Glacial. Golf? Slower than a tranquilized sloth.

But a Major League player on the links? Apparently, fast.

Former outfielder Eric Byrnes set a new world record for playing 420 holes at Half Moon Bay Golf Links in California in a 24-hour window on Monday and Tuesday.

Byrnes has been doing a host of publicity stunts for his Let Them Play foundation, which encourages kids to get outside and play. Byrnes had previously completed the first-ever transcontinental Triathlon Across America, swimming seven miles across the San Francisco Bay, biking over 2,400 miles from Oakland to Chicago and running 905 miles from Chicago to New York City.

The 43-year-old broke the previous mark of 401 holes set in 1971 by Australian Ian Colston in just over 22-and-a-half hours.

“I remember him coming home once saying, ‘I just played 18 holes in 48 minutes,’” said Brynes' wife Tarah to a San Francisco CBS affiliate. “My first reaction was, ‘You can never tell me it takes five hours to play a round of golf again.'”

Insert your J.B. Holmes joke here.