Golfer breaks world record for courses played in year: ‘Hardest thing I’ve ever done’

Imagine a year set aside just for golf. There are no work obligations. No family commitments. There’s nothing to do but hit it, find it, expires on the 18th — and then go to the next course and do it again.

Does this sound like a dream or dystopian? A year of guilt-free self-indulgence, or an overdose of a good thing?

For Josh Simpson, it had elements of both.

But now he has done it. It’s official. On a gray Monday afternoon about an hour and a half west of LondonSimpson, a 27-year-old Englishman, completed a loop at The Caversham to set a new benchmark. The round – his 581st in 2025 – set the world record for most 18-hole rounds played on different courses in a single year.

“It’s easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Simpson told GOLF.com. “It’s also the best thing I’ve ever done.”

If his feelings about this work were mixed, so were his emotions when the odyssey began. The inspiration for it was Simpson’s mother, who succumbed to cancer in 2023, just months after being diagnosed. For Simpson, a self-described zombie boy, her death shot down what he calls a “wormhole” of reflection. Life is short, he realized. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. At the urging of a friend, Simpson left the family lawn care business and set off on a mobile golf holiday, raising money along the way for charities connected to his mother’s memory.

The quest began on January 24 with a 36-hole day on the two courses at Woodhall Spain England. From there, it was almost non-stop. He lived out of a camper van, criss-crossing England, Wales and Scotland. The kilometers blurred. So did the rounds, although some stops were memorable. Moving from course to course, Simpson scored dozens of big names, many of them Open Championship host websites. The one exception was the Old Course, which surrendered to an event on the day he hoped to play it.

Simpson has a single-digit index, although his handicap changed throughout the trip. Good rounds. Bad rounds. An albatross nearby. In more than 10,000 holes, Simpson never made an ace, though he witnessed several close calls. He just can’t remember exactly where they happened.

What he remembers most clearly are the people. His play partners ran the gamut – the greengrocersCEOs, poker players, arms dealers – the human carnival marching through golf courses everywhere.

Bad weather days also stand out in the memory. At Royal Porthcawl, he managed 18 in heavy, horizontal rain with a jubilant club member producing his own sun. In Glasgow, he hit it with rain and 50mph winds, marking his worst result of the year. Not that he cared about the number. He only thought about keeping up.

Golf marathons are hard on the body. But the most persistent pains were the logistical headaches: booking time, mapping the routes, meeting the required criteria. Guinness offered many of them. To qualify for the record, each course had to be 18 holes longer than 6,000 yards, a standard that fell many courses in the UK, which is rich with 9-hole layouts and designs that predate the long ball era. According to Simpson, more than half of the courses in Scotland did not qualify.

On top of these requirements, Simpson had to play every hole in order. No mulligans. There is no trick. Not starting in the 10th group. Each round needed a witness and a club signature. As if following the Rules of Golf weren’t enough.

“You realize these criteria may not have been written by someone who actually plays golf,” Simpson said.

Anyone who plays knows that packing for a big trip can be a hassle. Simpson’s approach to this was pragmatic. He didn’t think much of it. The clubs? The balls? Gloves? Check, check, check. He knew rain gear would be a must. This is a stocking mother. Otherwise, he thought, he could get what he needed at his next stop.

Throughout the year, he burned 30 gloves and who knows how many balls. But he is only on the second pair of shoes. His first, a pair of G4s, lasted 500 rounds before he finally laid them to rest.

One thing that was with him every day was a custom ballpoint pen emblazoned with his mother’s name and images of bees, which she loved.

“It’s a bittersweet feeling,” Simpson said. “I wish my mom could see what I was doing, but none of this would have happened if she hadn’t come through.”

The record is now his. Done and dusted. But Simpson isn’t done. He has a few more weeks left in the year and plans to cut more courses. How much, exactly? It is difficult to say. On the one hand, he is in a grove and can continue.

On the other hand, he admits, “I’m so sick of golf.”