Okay, so I saw this question online about whether a “condor” has ever happened in golf. Honestly, I didn’t even know what a condor was, so I got curious and dove in.
What even is a Condor?
First things first, I had to figure out what the heck a condor actually is in golf terms. Turns out, it’s a REALLY rare score. We’re talking four strokes under par on a single hole. Like, imagine getting a hole-in-one on a par 5! That’s insane. You’d mostly see these, if ever, on par-5s with a hole-in-one, or maybe a par-6 with a score of 2, or a par-7 with a score of 3… but those are super, super rare course types.
So, my next step was trying to find any actual record of this.
Digging Through the Records (or Trying To)
I started with a good, old-fashioned search. I typed in “condor in golf,” “golf condor records,” all that stuff. I found some articles and forum discussions, but it was a lot of “it’s theoretically possible” and not a lot of “here’s the proof.”
I looked through some of the major golf organizations, like the PGA Tour. Found tons of stats on birdies, eagles, even albatrosses, but condors? Nowhere to be seen easily. It felt like chasing a ghost.
After a while I founded 5 confirmed reports about condors. I will list them below:
- 1962:Larry Bruce on the par-5 fifth at Hope Country Club in Arkansas, USA.
- 2002:Shaun Lynch on the par-5 17th at Teign Valley Golf Club in Christow, England.
- 2007:Jack Bartlett on the par-5 17th at Royal Wentworth Falls Country Club in New South Wales, Australia.
- 2017: Kevin Pon on the par-6 18th(667 yards/610 meters) at Lake Chabot Golf Course in California,USA.
- 2020: Alex Stirk on the par-5 14th at the Concord Golf Club in New South Wales, Australia.
My Conclusion
From what I could gather, a condor is incredibly rare, and it’s still a hot topic. The few instances I found, some are hard to verify, some are more legendary than * seems like something that’s more likely to happen on a course with a big dogleg where you can cut across, rather than a straight, long par 5.
So yeah, it seems possible, It seems has been reported few times, but incredibly, mind-blowingly rare.
