It’s one of the hardest things to achieve in the game.
The first one came in 1977.
It was another 14 years before someone did it again.
It was then eight years after that before it happened a third time.
Breaking 60 has always held mythical status in golf.
Al Geiberger (1977), Chip Beck (1991) and David Duval (1999) were the first three to pull it off.
Since 2010, there have been eight more PGA Tour golfers who shot a 59, including Jim Furyk, who also shot a record-setting 58 from in 2016. He remains the only golfer to shoot a 58 on Tour and he’s the only golfer to break 60 twice.
Bryson DeChambeau joined the 58 Club after his 12-under round in a LIV Golf event.
Scottie Scheffler is the latest to break 60 on the PGA Tour, shooting a 59 in the second round of the 2020 Northern Trust. It’s the 12th time that a Tour golfer broke 60.
On the LPGA, there has only been one 59. It came in 2001 and was accomplished by Annika Sorenstam.
Joaquinn Niemann’s 59 in the 2024 LIV opener made him the second on that circuit to do it.
And in 2024, a golfer on the Korn Ferry Tour became the first to shoot 57 in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
Here’s a closer look at the sub-60 rounds in pro golf.
Built in 1948, it’s ready for a renovation led by Andy Staples.
MESA, Ariz. — A U.S. Open champ, two prominent PGA Tour stars and an NFL Hall of Famer call it home. Now Mesa Country Club, a true gem in the greater Phoenix area, is getting ready for a major renovation.
Located in an older part of the third largest city in Arizona, the club sits across the street from a cemetery and just blocks away from Hohokam Park, home to the Oakland A’s spring training.
What makes the place, though, is topography that features sometimes astounding elevation changes for a course that’s almost smack dab in the middle of the generally flat greater Phoenix area.
“Built in 1948 by William P. Bell, the Golden Age architect,” said Andy Staples of Staples Golf Design, the Scottsale-based firm hired for the renovation. “We think it was one of the first courses William P. Bell and his son William F. Bell designed together.”
What’s also attractive to many of its members is its location. The Loop 202 is just a mile to the north. Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport is less than 15 minutes to the west. Scottsdale residents – including honorary members and PGA Tour stars Max Homa and Joel Dahmen – are about 35 minutes away.
Other members include PGA Tour Champions golfers Steve Jones, who won the 1996 U.S. Open, and Michael Allen. Don’t forget 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and former Chicago Bears great Brian Urlacher.
“I first played here in 1982. Just old school. Love it,” Jones said. “You don’t get tired of this course. Small greens. You gotta have your irons under control. It’s a challenge. And the membership is just the frosting on the cake.”
A flag, golf ball and signed scorecard commemorate Joel Dahmen’s course-record 58 at Mesa Country Club in Arizona. (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
The laid-back Mesa Country Club isn’t trying to keep its membership rolls a secret, nor does it have someone stationed at the front desk reminding everyone to take off their hats indoors. It is a private club with a relaxed atmosphere, none of the stuffy pretenses found elsewhere.
“Mesa Country Club is a special spot in the Valley, which has a lot of high-end private courses, but it’s a great country club but also has great people and has a blue-collar attitude,” Dahmen said. “You can show up in jeans, you can show up in a T-shirt. It’s just a really special spot for me. It’s like how I grew up playing golf. It’s a little more laid back, not as many rules.”
Old-school golf in the desert
As for the layout, it’s unlike most of the desert golf common in the Phoenix metropolitan area. That’s partly due to the age of the venue.
“We’re not really thought of as being an historic state for great old classic golf courses, which is one of the reasons I was hired because I have those tendencies,” Staples said.
MCC has a lot in common with Phoenix Country Club (host of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on the PGA Tour Champions) and Arizona Country Club, also in Phoenix. All three layouts are old-school, parkland-style designs with rolling hills, huge trees and lots of grass.
Mesa Country Club has too much grass, in fact, and a reduction is a major part of the renovation. Staples said his redesign will take it from about 125 acres of sod to about 100. As you play the course, you can easily spot several areas where there will be no grass in the future – these are areas that don’t need it, as they are for the most part out of play.
Mesa Country Club
The course was built on a mesa, with several steep climbs most noticeable on:
The par-5 fifth hole, with a dramatic downhill fairway that if managed properly could lead to getting home in two.
The par-3 seventh, which has a canal rushing next to the tee box before meandering across the front of the green.
The 10th hole, a par 4 on which the back tees are on a deck right off the clubhouse, requiring a tee shot over the road that leads cars to the parking lot.
The par-3 16th, with an elevated tee box aimed at a small green that becomes narrow if there’s a back pin in play.
The par-5 18th, which will see most golfers hitting a third shot up a steep hill to a green situated just off the clubhouse deck.
Mesa Country Club in Mesa, Arizona (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
There’s a canal that slithers about the property, crossing several fairways and forcing some golfers to rethink their second shots on a couple of the par 5s. It comes into play on five holes. There also are a couple of lakes along the ninth hole, which features the trickiest green on the course.
The course was long overdue for a renovation, with the irrigation system in greatest need of an upgrade. Staples is big on conservation and responsible water consumption, calling it a “core value of sustainable golf design.”
He’s not just looking to renovate for next season but for decades down the road.
“What I try to do in all my golf courses is do it in such a manner that is looking 20, 30, 40 years down the line. Water efficiency, labor efficiency, those costs are only going up. So water is a huge aspect.”
A major re-do of all the greenside bunkers is planned. There won’t be any new bunkers, but the existing ones will be reshaped with added depth as needed and new sand added to all of them. Fairway bunkers, meanwhile, will be left as is, as there aren’t infinite resources available. The fairway bunkers will be reworked at a later date.
A rendering of the new seventh green at Mesa Country Club in Arizona
The greens, meanwhile, suffered from the common problem of shrinkage. They’ll be restored to their original sizes and brought up to modern standards.
Brian Reed, Mesa Country Club’s vice president of the board, confirmed the course will close on Feb. 18, 2024, with a goal to reopen on Nov. 1. He said the club is committing $10 million to the project.
Staples, who likes to tell a self-deprecating joke that he’s not the son of a famous golf course architect nor does he have a major championship or two on his playing resume, does have an impressive list of renovations and new builds in his portfolio. Most notable among his renovation work is Olympia Fields Country Club in Illinois. Of the seven courses he built, Sand Hollow Resort’s Links Course in Hurricane, Utah, and the Match Course at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, stand out.
As far as the future of Mesa Country Club, Staples says it’s probably not too far down the road before the golf club invests in TifTuf, a strain of Bermuda grass that can thrive year-round around Phoenix, even in the brutal summer heat. That will render the days of overseeding with rye grass for the winter a thing of the past, giving three weeks of playing time back to the membership.
The key to this renovation, though, is keeping the course grounded in its historical style, Staples said.
“I’d like to think that my tilt towards classic architecture tipped it in my favor.”
Jim Furyk, golf’s Mr. 58, has company after Bryson DeChambeau shot that magic number on Sunday at LIV Greenbrier in West Virginia on the Old White Course at the Greenbrier Resort.
Interestingly, it was almost seven years to the day that Furyk set the record for low 18-hole score on the PGA Tour during the final round of the Travelers Championship on Aug. 7, 2016. Furyk didn’t see the broadcast of DeChambeau’s dream round but when he heard how he drained a long putt for birdie at the last to shoot 58, Furyk found the video online.
“I will say that Bryson has a much better leaping ability than Phil Mickelson and it is not even close,” Furyk said of DeChambeau’s celebration and a shot at Mickelson’s famous leap when he won the 2004 Masters with a birdie at 18. “He got some actual air under his heels.”
Furyk hasn’t had a reason to jump for joy on the course of late. In fact, he hasn’t played since he withdrew from the American Family Insurance Championship in June after rounds of 80-76. Furyk, 53, has been sidelined with an ailing back and a hip issue to boot. It had been a disappointing year prior to the injury forcing him out — he has gone 10 starts without a top-10 finish and 19 of his last 21 rounds have been in the 70s. He’s hoping to return to action shortly – the third edition of Furyk & Friends as a Champions Tour stop in Jacksonville, Florida, is just around the corner in early October.
“I’m trying to work hard at it. It’s just taken some time and I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to go play Ally (Championship in Michigan). That’s the plan,” he said of the PGA Tour Champions event scheduled to begin in just over two weeks at Warwick Hills, a course where he’s won on both the PGA Tour and in his senior debut among his 17 PGA Tour wins and three on PGA Tour Champions. “I really haven’t had any back issues before. So this one’s a little new for me. I’m kind of learning about it.”
Furyk hasn’t had trouble filling the void of not playing golf. Among the activities keeping him busy is a golf course design project in Port St. Lucie, Florida, which marks his first foray into building a course from scratch as the name designer. Furyk has been involved in some consulting work before on course renovations, and he had a couple of projects back in the 2008-09 timeframe that never got off the ground after the real-estate market crashed in the U.S. Furyk is teaming with veteran architect Mike Beebe, who opened his own shop in 1998 after working for Mark McCumber’s design firm.
“It’s going to be fun to play, that any level of player can get around,” Furyk said. “You have to understand who you’re building the golf course for and, so, I’m hoping that when people see my name, they’re not thinking of a hard golf course or tournament golf course.”
Furyk still plans to focus on competing for the time being, but he’s also heavily invested in the success of the tournament bearing his name as well as his role as a U.S. Ryder Cup vice captain in September and Presidents Cup captain next year in Montreal. He does, however, hope to squeeze in some more golf course design work in the years to come.
“It’d be nice to have one project going at a time,” he said. “One project where I could go spend a lot of time on it will be fun.”
Bryson DeChambeau has posted the lowest score in the history of the two-year-old LIV Golf League.
During Sunday’s final round of the LIV Golf Greenbrier at the Old White Course in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, DeChambeau posted a 12-under 58.
DeChambeau’s scorecard was simply one circle after another as he collected 13 birdies. He started on the first hole in the Sunday shotgun start and had six birdies on his first seven holes before a bogey at the eighth. He closed with four straight birdies on Nos. 15 through 18 to get to 23 under to win the event by five shots over Mito Pereira.
The most dramatic stroke was his final one on his final hole, a long putt to break 60 by two shots.
5️⃣8️⃣ FOR THE TITLE!
A FIRST WIN FOR BRYSON, AND A FIRST ROUND UNDER 60 IN #LIVGOLF HISTORY! 😱
The Old White course played as a par-70 and measured 7,255 yards Sunday.
After his round, he was asked on the CW telecast about whether he thought U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson would soon be giving him a call.
“I’ve got some equipment that’s performing quite nicely, with the driver and that’s a deadly combination with my putting. Cleary I putted well, drove it well, wedged it well. You couldn’t have written it up any better than this,” he said. “But if I do get a call, that’d be awesome. If not, I’ll be rooting them on over in Rome.”
Phil Mickelson congratulated DeChambeau on social media but also took a chance to give him some friendly ribbing: “Incredible round by Bryson. 58. What a weekend and win for him. He stole my jump though. Not cool. Proud of his resolve after Cameron and I gave him a thumping Wednesday.”
DeChambeau won $4 million for the victory, his first LIV title. The Torque GC team of Pereira, David Puig, Joaquin Niemann and Sebastian Munoz won the team title.
He had such a good time posting a 29 on the front nine, he decided to do it again on the back.
Former Arizona State University star Alejandro del Rey had such a good time posting a 29 on the front nine of a Challenge Tour event Friday he decided to do it again on the back.
The final result, a scintillating 58, is believed to be the first on a major tour on a par-72 layout. A few others — Jim Furyk at the 2016 Travelers, for example — have posted the same score, but on par-70 layouts.
Incredibly, the Spaniard was thinking even lower during the Swiss Challenge at Golf Saint Apollinaire, a course in the French hills just outside Basel, Switzerland. After posting consecutive eagles on Nos. 11 and 12, then adding birdies on No. 14 and 15, he could have gone 55 if he’d have birdied out. Instead, del Rey made par on each of the final three holes to secure the impressive number.
Although he had a productive career at Arizona State — capturing four collegiate titles while in Tempe and helping Spain take the bronze at the 2018 World Amateur Team Championship — del Rey has fallen to 392nd in the Official World Golf Ranking and an even 500th in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. He struggled in Thursday’s opening round at the event, posting a pedestrian 74, before Friday’s incredible display.
A pair of other players Adrian Monk and Nicolo Ravano, have also posted 58s on the Challenge Tour, but again not on par-72 layouts.
Even with his showing, del Rey is still two shots behind leaded Marcel Schneider, who broke the course record with a 61 on the event’s opening day, but that distinction didn’t hold up long.
