Today’s golfing fast and fascinating facts. What is the highest golf course in the world and who won the first European Tour event?
A Head for Heights
- According to the Guinness Book of Records, the highest golf course in the world is the Yak Golf Course in Kupup, East Sikkim, India, the 6,025-yard, 18-hole course is situated at 13,025 feet above sea level in the foothills of the Himalayas.
- In second place, some 7,666km south-west is La Paz Golf Club in Bolivia, sitting almost 11,000-feet above sea level, with Copper Creek Golf Club, Colorado, USA in third place, its 14th tee perching some 9,863 feet above sea level.
- Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the lowest-lying golf course on the planet is Furnace Creek Golf Course in Death Valley in California, which is measured at 214-feet below sea level.
Significant Spanish Firsts
- Following its formation at the start of the 1972 season, the European Tour has witnessed many hundreds of different winners from scores of different countries, but the winner of the inaugural event on the circuit was a home winner, Spanish star Antonio Garrido, who earned €2,072 (Approx. US$2,2550) when he won the Spanish Open at the Club Golf de Pals, Girona between 12th – 15th April 1972.
- And it was to be a clean sweep of ‘Home’ winners, with compatriots Valentin Barrios and Ángel Gallardo taking second and third place respectively.
- In all, Garrido Snr, from whom the 1972 Spanish Open was to be his maiden European Tour victory, he went on to win 10-times in total on the circuit, eight more than his son Ignacio, whose two European Tour wins were in Volvo-sponsored tournaments, the 1997 Volvo German Open, then, six-years-later, the big one, the Volvo PGA Championship at Wentworth.
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