Imagine if you spent a year just playing golf. There is no work obligation. There are no family commitments. There’s nothing to do but hit it, find it, putt out on the 18th, drive to the next course, and do it again.
Do you think this is a dream or a dystopia? A year of guiltless self-destruction or an overdose of the good stuff?
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For Josh Simpson, it was a bit of both.
But now he’s done it. It’s official. On a gray Monday afternoon, about an hour and a half west of London, the 27-year-old Briton completed a lap around Caversham to set a new benchmark. This round was the 581st in 2025, setting a world record for most 18-hole rounds played on different courses in one year.
“This is definitely 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 feat were mixed, so were his feelings when the journey began. The inspiration for the piece was Simpson’s mother, who passed away just months after being diagnosed with cancer in 2023. For Simpson, a self-proclaimed mummy, her death sent him into what he called a “wormhole” of remorse. Life is short, he realized. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. At the urging of a friend, Simpson quit her family’s lawn care business and embarked on a traveling golf feast, raising money for a charity in her mother’s memory in the process.
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The quest began on January 24th with a 36-hole day across two courses at England’s Woodhall Spa. From there it was almost non-stop. He lived in a campervan crisscrossing England, Wales and Scotland. The kilometers became a blur. The round was similar, but some of the stops were unforgettable. Moving from course to course, Simpson took on dozens of big names, many of which were home to the British Open Championship. The exception was the Old Course, which was given over to the event on the day I wanted to play.
Simpson changed handicaps throughout the trip, but his index remained in the single digits. It was a good round. Bad round. A nearby albatross. Simpson didn’t hit an ace over 10,000 holes, but he had a few close calls. He just can’t remember exactly where it happened.
Simpson’s modest residence. Angus Murray
What he remembers more clearly is the people. His playing partners ranged from greenkeepers to CEOs to poker players to arms dealers and were like a human carnival parading around golf courses everywhere.
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Even days with bad weather will remain in your memory. At Royal Porthcawl, we made it through to victory on the 18th with our cheerful club members who made their own sunshine in the pouring rain. Glasgow recorded its lowest score of the year, recorded in a downpour and 80mph winds. He wasn’t concerned about the numbers. All he cared about was keeping up the pace.
Running a golf marathon puts a strain on your body. But the more persistent headaches were the logistical headaches of booking times, mapping routes, and adhering to required standards. Guinness provided plenty of them. To qualify for this record, each course had to be 18 holes over 6,000 yards, a standard that beat many courses in the UK, rich in nine-hole layouts and designs from before the long-ball era. Mr Simpson said more than half of Scotland’s courses failed to qualify.
In addition to these requirements, Simpson had to play all holes in order. There are no mulligans. No gim. There will be no start from the 10th tee. Witness and club signatures were required for all rounds. As if following the rules of golf isn’t enough.
“We felt these standards might not have been written by people who actually play golf,” Simpson says.
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Anyone who plays games knows that packing for a big trip can be a pain. Simpson’s approach to this was pragmatic. He didn’t think about it too much. club? ball? gloves? Check, check, check. He knew rain gear was a must. The same goes for the sock population. Otherwise, he thought, he would be able to get what he needed at his next destination.
Over the course of the year, he used up 30 gloves and how many balls. But he’s still only wearing his second pair of shoes. His first two G4s lasted 500 rounds before he finally stopped them.
The item he carried with him every day was a custom-made ball marker with his mother’s name and a picture of his mother’s favorite bee on it.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling,” Simpson said. “I wish my mom could see what I was doing, but if she hadn’t died, none of this would have happened.”
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That record was now his. Done and dusted. But Simpson isn’t done yet. I have a few more weeks left this year, so I’m planning on taking more courses. How many exactly? It’s hard to say. On the other hand, he is in the grove and might be better off staying that way.
However, he admitted that he was “pretty fed up with golf.”
The post The Hardest Thing I Ever Did: Breaking the World Record for Most Courses Played in a Year by a Golfer appeared first on Golf.
