Zach Holland, a former college golfer and current 2 handicap, faked a hole-in-one at a member-member tournament and got caught on security cameras doing it. We posted a video recapping the incident to Instagram.
Holland was in the first group off the tee at WingHaven Country Club in O’Fallon, Missouri, where the member-member tournament had a hole-in-one prize pot on the line for the day.
Before the round, Holland told his group he had a personal call coming in, allegedly from his sick grandmother. The group told him no problem. On the third hole, he said the call was coming in and he’d hurry ahead to tee off on No. 4 by himself so he wouldn’t hold up play. When his group arrived, Holland told them he’d thinned his shot and wasn’t sure where it went. Then they found the ball in the hole. The group celebrated but nobody had actually watched him hit the shot.
Security footage told a different story. WingHaven staff reviewed camera footage near the maintenance shed and saw Holland park his car there well before his tee time. From there, he walked out to the fourth green, created a fake divot on the putting surface, and put his own ball into the hole. When confronted with the footage, Holland admitted the setup and resigned his membership.
Holland, a former golfer at William Carey University, went on 101 ESPN St. Louis’ “The Morning After” to apologize publicly. “There’s no excuse for what I did, and I was completely in the wrong,” Holland said. “There’s really no motivation. Just complete stupidity, and we were giving two shots back to the field and that’s not an excuse. There’s no excuse for what happened.
“I made a terrible mistake. The lack of moral character … I can take the banter and the chatter and the heat because I deserve that from a golf perspective.”
Holland said the fallout has hit his family hardest. He’s been married five years and has two kids under three, and he said he doesn’t want them carrying a stigma because of what he did. He also pushed back on the idea that he’s a cheater on the course generally, framing this as one indefensible lapse, and said he and his family have received online threats since the story broke.
We also obtained messages appearing to show Holland discussing handicap manipulation years before the WingHaven incident. In the messages, he wrote: “I was a +2.9 in April, but had a few member guest in September and October I had to post some fake high scores so I wasn’t giving strokes back to the field. I hate handicap golf.” He added: “Now people bitch so I have to play member events at lake forest as a 0 lol.”
WingHaven confirmed the incident in a statement to Golf.com. GM Nathan Charnes said, “WingHaven Country Club is aware of the recent attention surrounding an incident involving a former member during a Club event,” Charnes said. “The Club promptly addressed the matter.
“We care deeply about the integrity of the game and the experience we provide for our members and guests. Because this situation involved the actions of an individual and has been resolved, we consider it closed and have no further comment.”
