Texas Children's Houston Open

Memorial Park Golf Course



The Loop

The World's Worst Avid Golfer returns to 17

May 11, 2011

When is a 44 a decent score on a single hole? Well, maybe when your previous at-bat on the same hole was a 66.

So it was with Angelo Spagnolo, the so-called "World's Worst Avid Golfer," who a quarter century ago had his dubious feat at the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass captured on film as part of a Golf Digest initiative.

That day in 1986, Spagnolo sent a seemingly endless stream of balls into the lake surrounding the island green, was booed by his own young son, and eventually resorted to putting his way around the walkway (for good measure, one of the putts also went into the water) in an effort to finally get to the green.

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Earlier this year, Spagnolo returned to 17, and [Golf Channel captured him piecing together his untidy 44](http://www.thegolfchannel.com/golf-videos/remembering-angelo-worst-avid-golfer-16016/?ref=26000) (only after the fact was it revealed that Spagnolo received an incorrect ruling, which cost him 30 strokes). Regardless, it was a marked improvement, which brings up an important lesson: The next time you quadruple bogey a hole and think you should quit the game, you should actually be congratulating yourself for keeping it to single digits.

-- Sam Weinman