Golf legend John Daly has once again grabbed headlines, but this time for a record-setting score that no player wants on their résumé. At the Sanford International in South Dakota, Daly posted a staggering 19 on the par-5 12th hole, a number that immediately entered Champions Tour history books for all the wrong reasons.
John Daly’s nightmare hole stuns fans at Minnehaha Country Club
On Friday, September 12, at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Daly’s round unraveled on the par-5 12th. After opening with a modest front nine and starting the back nine with a bogey and a par, everything collapsed in spectacular fashion.With no ShotLink system available at the Champions Tour event, the exact sequence of Daly’s shots is unclear. What is known is that his tee ball veered into the rough, setting off a string of penalties. Reports confirmed Daly racked up seven penalty drops in total before finally holing out with a 14-over-par 19.That single hole ballooned his score from four-over to an eye-watering 18-over. Spectators could only watch in disbelief as one of the game’s most colorful figures lived through one of its most brutal stretches.
A record-breaking score nobody wanted to see
The updated scorecard showed the 12th hole originally marked as a 17, but it was later corrected to 19, the highest ever recorded on a single hole in Champions Tour history. The unfortunate number surpassed Daly’s previous personal lowlight: an infamous 18 at Bay Hill in 1998, when he repeatedly dumped shots into the water with his 3-wood. That infamous round was etched into golf lore, until now.What makes it even more painful for Daly is that it wasn’t his first brush with a massive number. This new mark at Minnehaha has replaced that moment as Daly’s most infamous single-hole collapse. His round ballooned to an 18-over-par 88, a number that left him trailing far behind first-round leader Ángel Cabrera, who posted a six-under 64.His Sanford International disaster may be one for the record books, but for John Daly, it’s just another wild chapter in a career defined by both brilliance and chaos.
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