An amateur golfer in Missouri has resigned from his country club after admitting that a celebrated hole-in-one was actually the result of an elaborate cheating attempt that was ultimately exposed by security footage.
Zach Holland, a former college golfer who reportedly carries a 2 handicap, admitted during an interview that he deliberately placed his golf ball in the cup at the par-3 fourth hole at WingHaven Country Club in O’Fallon, Missouri, before a member-member tournament.
He later claimed during the event that he had aced the hole. “You do something as dumb as I did, there are consequences for that,” Holland said Friday during an appearance on “The Morning After.”
A Hole-in-One Celebration Unravels
The circumstances made the deception particularly consequential. According to Holland, the tournament included a hole-in-one prize pot, and his group was the first one on the course.
Holland said he played the opening three holes with his partners before telling them he needed to take a personal phone call while they played No. 4. He said the call supposedly concerned his mortally ill grandmother.
To maintain the pace of play, Holland told the others he would go ahead, hit his tee shot on the fourth hole and meet them later at the green.
When Holland rejoined the group, he claimed he had “thinned” his tee shot and wasn’t sure where the ball had gone.
Then came the discovery. The group found Holland’s ball sitting in the cup.
Believing they had just witnessed the aftermath of a legitimate hole-in-one, Holland’s playing partners celebrated the apparent ace and contacted a superintendent.
There was one major problem: Holland had already planted the ball.
Security Footage Exposes the Scheme
According to Holland’s account, WingHaven staff reviewed security footage and discovered video showing him driving near the fourth green well before his scheduled tee time. Faced with the evidence, Holland eventually admitted to club officials that the hole-in-one had been staged.
He subsequently resigned his membership.
Nathan Charnes, acting president of the PGA of America and general manager at WingHaven, confirmed that the club had dealt with an incident involving a former member.
“WingHaven Country Club is aware of the recent attention surrounding an incident involving a former member during a Club event,” Charnes said in a statement to GOLF.com. “The Club promptly addressed the matter.”
Charnes said WingHaven cares “deeply about the integrity of the game” and considers the situation resolved.
Holland, meanwhile, offered no elaborate defense for what happened.
“There’s no excuse for what I did, and I was completely in the wrong,” he said.
He mentioned that his team was giving two shots back to the field but immediately rejected that as justification.
“There’s really no motivation,” Holland said. “Just complete stupidity.”
Holland Says His Family Is Paying a Price
The fallout has since moved well beyond the golf course. Holland said he and members of his family have received threats online. He also maintained that despite this incident, he does not consider himself someone who routinely cheats at golf.
“I made a bad decision, and I have to suffer the consequences,” he said. “I’m trying to move forward as best I can and it’s been rough.”
Holland said he accepts criticism directed at him over what happened at WingHaven, but he asked people to leave his wife and two young children out of it.
“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.
His larger concern, he explained, is what his actions could mean for his children when other people recognize the family or bring up the scandal.
“It’s not fair to them for me to put them in that situation where when they walk through a room, there is a stigma there that your dad is a cheater,” Holland said.
For Holland, that consequence now outweighs anything connected to his former country club membership or the tournament itself.
“The golf is secondary.”
