At 5:58 p.m. this past Sunday, Mike Woodard went out for a round at his home course in Georgia.
He wasn’t chasing daylight. He was after something more.
When darkness fell over Cartersville Country Club, Woodard switched to glow balls and kept playing, firing at flagsticks outfitted with toy lightsabers for visibility, his path lit by headlamp-wearing volunteers. Dawn broke, and Woodard stuck with it, looping the layout all day Monday and through a second night before holing out one last time at 7:58 a.m. Tuesday.
Thirty-eight sleepless hours after he’d started, Woodard, 40, hadn’t merely set what organizers say is a new world record for consecutive hours playing golf. He’d also raised more than $180,000 for children’s healthcare.
“When you think about how far some parents have to go to get medical care for their children, 38 hours of golf doesn’t really seem like much,” Woodard said.
Woodard was a kid himself when he got into golf. The local muni doubled as a kind of daycare. He went on to earn a PGA management degree and land a job as an assistant pro. He has since traded that career for a different one — he now runs an employee benefits firm — but he never gave up the game, playing roughly once a week in the way a lot of weekend golfers do: with a cart and generously conceded putts.
It was a friend who first floated the idea of pegging it for a bigger purpose: raising money for Live2540, a nonprofit that funds children’s healthcare initiatives in the West African nation of Liberia. A marathon outing, tackled in the name of charity, seemed like the way to do it, all the better if it shattered a world record along the way.
A single-digit handicap, Woodard didn’t prepare by grinding on the range. Instead, he worked on his endurance, taking long walks after work and hoofing his home course. Portions of it, anyway. “I’d take the cart to my tee ball and then walk to the green from there,” he said.
Walking was, in fact, a requirement of the record attempt, but Woodard wasn’t plying the fairways on his own. Buggies trailed him for support, and hundreds of spectators turned out over the two days, along with rotating shifts of volunteers who lit his way after dark and kept him stocked with snacks and fluids.
“I don’t think I’ve ever taken in so many electrolytes in my life,” Woodard said.
He needed them. Monday was the hottest day of 2026, with temperatures cracking triple digits. Monday night was cooler in both senses of the word: a full moon lit the course like a spotlight.
The rules allowed him a five-minute break every hour, though Woodard often banked them, saving up the minutes so he could cash in longer rest stops later on. Cartersville is a flat, walkable course, but the heat still took its toll. Woodard swapped his socks every three to four hours, along with his shirt, shorts, and cap, and wore sneakers instead of golf shoes to avoid blisters.
The real challenge, though, he said, wasn’t physical but mental, especially in what proved to be a strange final stretch. With six to eight hours to go, Woodard began hallucinating, seeing trees and hazards that weren’t there and, by his own account, “talking nonsense.” He credits the volunteers for carrying him through it, along with a boost from Stephen Scroggins, a Green Beret buddy who flew in from Colorado to walk the final hours by his side.
“This was really a community effort,” Woodard said. “I get emotional just thinking about it.”
For those keeping tabs at home, this was the final tally: 144 holes, or eight full rounds, with every shot counted. Woodard’s best score was a 78; his worst was 88. On his final approach, in the pale light of Tuesday morning, he stuck it close. But, golf being golf, the putt didn’t drop.
Not that he was counting. The only sum that mattered was money raised.
When it was over, Woodard returned to the home he shares with his wife, Nicole, and their two children. He posed for family photos, then he went to sleep, waking briefly in the evening before conking out again and snoozing until morning.
By Thursday, he was back at the office. And by Friday, he was back at the course, playing in his regular game with friends.
They planned to finish well before dark.
