Joel Dahmen and Geno Bonnalie have quickly become one of the most popular player-caddie duos on the PGA Tour, but there’s a feat Bonnalie’s accomplished that some of his fans might not even know about.
How many caddies can say they are in the Guinness World Records book?
Bonnalie was the guest on this week’s Subpar Podcast, and in his appearance he talked about working with Netflix during “Full Swing,” life on the road and lots more. And one of the topics that came up was the fact that Bonnalie at one point held three Guinness World Records: Most holes of golf played in a week (2,000), most birdies made in a week (493), and most birdies made in 12 hours (67).
Although only one of those is still a record, which is the 493 birdies in a week.
“I thought my 67 birdies in 12 hours was really good, but there was a loophole in that that I didn’t think about at the time that you could play 18 par-5s and set them at the shortest distance,” he said. “The course [I played] was still semi-short, but it had to be over 6,000 yards per Guinness guidelines. So obviously 6,000 is short, but you can play a bunch of 420-yard par-5s I guess and make a pile of birdies.”
A lot went into getting those in the record books, too. He had to have two independent scorekeepers at all times, and they couldn’t work for more than four consecutive hours. He also had to have his scorecards backed up by affidavits stating he made the scores he did. And he had to mail in hundreds of scorecards and summary sheets.
“It was a lot of work,” he said. “It was quite the undertaking.”
You can watch the complete interview with Bonnalie on YouTube below.
As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.
