A group of Rotorua golfers have driven, chipped and putted their way into the record books at full speed.
Matt Dalton, Landyn Edwards, Mike Ryan and Steve Holloway are the new world record holders for the fastest round of golf (four-ball), pending confirmation from the Guinness World Record organisation, after finishing 18 holes in a remarkable time of 48 minutes and 55 seconds.
That is 2m 42s per hole and it easily beat the previous record of 1h 4m 25s, set by four British golfers at Ponteland Golf Course in Northumberland on June 19, 2005.
The Rotorua foursome teed off in windy conditions at 8am today,at the Rotorua Golf Club, and blitzed their way around the 5.567km Arikikapakapa course.
It was quite a sight; four golfers running from shot to shot, but still playing with impressive accuracy, followed by a support team in golf carts and with Rotorua Boys High School students spread out along the course to help spot the players' balls.
Rotorua speedgolfers Landyn Edwards (left), Steve Holloway, Mike Ryan and Matt Dalton celebrate a world record round of golf at the 18th hole. Photo / Stephen Parker
Dalton said everything went to plan.
"It feels really good. I felt like we were on target, the middle sort of six holes we started to feel a bit tired, but once we got through that and on to the last six holes the adrenaline carried us home.
"We're ecstatic, we knew we were ahead of the time, by the end it was just a case of how fast we could do it," he said.
"[The Rotorua Boys High students] are boys from our boarding house, so I asked them to come and help us and they acted as spotters.
"It's really hard when you tee off, seeing the ball in the sky and you want to get your head down and start running, so you watch the initial flight to know where you're heading and having the confidence that they'll stand on the ball really helped us minimise loss of time," he said.
There were still a few boxes to tick before they were officially the world record holders.
Matt Dalton (front) and Landyn Edwards run after their golf balls after teeing off during their world record round. Photo / Stephen Parker
"We've got two timekeepers signing their statements, witnesses signing their statements and we have to submit video footage. We kept three cameras just in case one blew out and we have to submit photographic evidence as well."
Holloway, who is the current New Zealand individual speedgolf champion, said it felt great to beat the four-ball record by 16 minutes.
"Every six holes our timekeepers yelled out what time we were and we roughly knew we had to be around 20 minutes for each six holes to beat it by four minutes. When they told us after nine holes we were only on 24 minutes we thought 'cool, we can calm down a little bit and keep the pace steady'," he said.
Individually, Holloway is ranked ninth in the world and hoped to improve on that ranking when he competes in the Inaugural United States Speedgolf Championships next month.
He said seven of the top 10 players in the world would be competing, so it was a good opportunity to try to make the podium and climb the rankings.
