Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Francesco Molinari and Gary Koch are some boldface names, but the golfers who pulled off some of the other great feats last season you’ve likely never heard of—until now. Ours is the most special game because magic can happen on any course, at any time, off any clubface. Here we celebrate the best aces, best par, best shot and more. As we look ahead to next year, keep us apprised of incredible accomplishments at your club by sending nominations to [email protected] with “Honors” in the subject title. —Max Adler

BEST CADDIE MOVE

Some golfers won bigger elections across the country last year, but none were more remarkable than Jamie Gathings’ victory as Richmond County Commissioner in North Carolina. The 6-foot-5 caddie known as “Big Country” worked for 18 years at Pine Valley Golf Club (2002-2019) where he learned that many of the members built their businesses on real estate. He sent his caddie fees back home to Hamlet, N.C., where he began buying up cheap land. He now owns 35 rental trailers, an apartment building, a restaurant and several commercial properties. “When you look around my little country town and ask, ‘Who owns that?’ the answer’s probably me,” he says.

Jamie’s background is even more amazing than his success. His father was a drug dealer. When his mother got cancer, he dropped out of school at 16 to work in a fast-food restaurant. “I did drugs, I sold drugs, I spent seven years in prison,” he told voters, “but it wasn’t the end of my world. I learned you can do anything if you’re honest, work hard and help people.”

One day he saw Golf Digest’s list of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses and phoned the caddiemaster at the No. 1-ranked course. “I told him I could tote two bags and keep up,” he says. “Got the job and never looked back. I always knew how to carry myself—whether it was with those lowlifes in prison or the billionaires at Pine Valley.” He ran on a platform of beating the fentanyl crisis, bringing back business to his community and sharing what he’s learned about making the right decisions. —Jerry Tarde

BEST SHOT https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/1/GD0225_FEAT_GDHONORS_03.jpg

Photograph by Woody Benson

To hit a green from 324 yards away is astounding, but to smoke a 3-wood from the rough to knee-knocker length to set up a winning birdie in a playoff in the biggest event of your season is something else entirely. Yes, it was downwind and conditions were firm. Yes, it was in the pressure cauldron of an alternate-shot member-guest shootout after his partner had topped his tee shot. Wasn’t it Bobby Jones who said the purest form of golf is amateurs competing for a few thousand bucks in parimutuel wagers before a fleet of carts loaded with heckling spectators and cocktails?

Already it was a mystical year for the team of Woody Benson and son Jake, who advanced out of the B Flight of the Quahog Classic Invitational at New Seabury C.C. on Cape Cod. Aged 66 and 33, Jake had become a father and let his once plus-handicap slip to 2. Woody was off 13, which explains but doesn’t excuse his 20-yard dribbler on the third playoff hole. The ball settled just left of the path where carts scatter, so the lie was decent. From here mounds obscure the green, guarded by water and bunkers, and Jake, a solidly built former high school basketball player, lasered the flag multiple times to be sure, then swung with everything he had. There’s talk of a plaque. “If Tiger hit that shot on TV, it’d be the greatest of his career,” says Woody, who to his credit, wiggled in the putt. —M.A.

BEST UP & DOWN

The chip from a collection area right of the 18th green at PGA West’s Stadium Course was good, but on its own, not highlight-worthy. Ball back in his stance, club straight back and through, Nick Dunlap sent it skidding to six feet, leaving a putt PGA Tour players make 71 percent of the time. But Dunlap was not a PGA Tour player. He teed off in the final round of The American Express as a University of Alabama sophomore, but the closing par save and one-shot win over Christiaan Bezuidenhout changed everything. The 20-year-old earned a two-year exemption onto the PGA Tour and notably became the first amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win on that tour. Although he didn’t collect first-place prize money, he turned professional days later, captured another win in the Barracuda Championship in July, and ended the year with nearly $3 million in earnings, all of which explains why a relatively straightforward up-and-down in the desert was so monumental. “Most nervous I’ve ever been, by far,” Dunlap said. “Just tried to breathe but also look up and enjoy it a little bit.” —Sam Weinman

BEST PAR https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/1/GD0225_FEAT_GDHONORS_06.jpg

Photograph courtesy of Paul Detre

A Zen Buddhist koan asks: If three shots are hit deep into the forest, can you still make par? Ten-handicap Brian Vanderweyst can answer yes. The par-5 fourth hole at his home course, Greenhills C.C. in London, Ontario, is a sweeping dogleg right. He wildly sliced his tee shot deep into the trees, but after a loud crack it miraculously appeared in the fairway. Selecting a driver off the deck for his second, he sliced again, and again got the same lucky ricochet result. Undeterred, he chose driver again, sliced, but this time the friendly forest merely returned his ball to a spot of rough just outside the hazard line. After a 60-yard wedge to the back fringe, he trickled in a ticklish 15-foot putt. The rest of the group collapsed in bewilderment. We were left thinking how bad the 3-wood slice must be. —Paul Detre

BEST BIRDIE 2153425292

David Cannon

The 590-yard par-5 10th at Valhalla was one of the easiest holes for the field at this year’s PGA Championship. For a man who warmed up for his second round by stretching in a jail cell, however, a 4 was a hell of a score. Scottie Scheffler was arrested Friday morning in Louisville outside the entrance of Valhalla Country Club, near the spot where an hour earlier a pedestrian was hit and killed by a shuttle bus in a separate incident. The World No. 1 had opened with a 67 and had finished second or first in his five previous starts—including his second Masters win—but now appeared to be forced out of the championship. Yet, less than 30 minutes after a photo of Scheffler in an orange prison suit circulated the news, he emerged from an SUV under the clubhouse awning. After a handful of hurried range swings, he was greeted by a standing ovation and “Free Scottie!” chants on the tee. His drive found the rough, forcing a lay-up. But his third from 90 yards went to three feet. When he converted the putt, there was a cry of “A bird for the jailbird!” As he walked to the 11th, playing mate Brian Harman patted Scheffler on the shoulder. A small sigh of relief. —Joel Beall

MORE: The surreal scenes of Scottie Scheffler’s return after arrest

BEST ACE

Francesco Molinari acing his final hole Friday to make the cut at the U.S. Open on the number wasn’t quite the golf equivalent of a Hail Mary. After all, Molinari didn’t win the U.S. Open at North Carolina’s Pinehurst No. 2, but it certainly was Hail Mary adjacent. The 42-year-old Italian knew the only way he was going to play the weekend was if he found the cup with his 7-iron on the 194-yard par-3 ninth, his final hole of the second round. Not many had faith. “Molinari … going to miss the cut,” was NBC host Mike Tirico’s call just before the former Open champion, two off the cutline, brought the club back. Molinari didn’t ask for an apology. “It looked on a great line the whole way, but what are the chances, really,” he said afterward. “I don’t even know what to say just incredible.” If only Molinari could have turned water into wine by going on a weekend run. Alas, he finished T-64. —Ryan Herrington

BEST PAIR OF ACES https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/1/GD0225_FEAT_GDHONORS_09.jpg

A storm was rolling in, but Ann and Bill Gray, and their friends David and Karen Barriera, stood on the tee box of the 16th hole at Capital Canyon Club in Prescott, Ariz., thinking they’d have enough time to play the par 3.

Ann never liked the hole. She’d bought a new 7-hybrid specifically to help her conquer the canyon in front. From 82 yards, she made a good swing, the ball rolled straight and went in—her first hole-in-one. Karen hit next, her ball coming to rest about a foot from the cup. They drove to the tees their husbands were playing. Bill stepped to the 140-yard shot. The thought crossed his mind that it’d be incredible if he could get an ace, too. He hit what he thought was a good 9-iron, but it was nowhere to be found. “I thought it was short,” Bill says. Then Ann checked the cup. It was Bill’s seventh.

The course emptied for the storm, creating a massive celebration in the clubhouse. As hail pummeled the roof, they toasted with champagne and signed the $850 bar tab. “We were thrilled to pay it,” Bill says. —Keely Levins

Jimmy Ellis, 39, stood out at the 2024 U.S. Amateur not only with his age but his play. An oil and gas landman with a wife and two young kids, Ellis beat all the college pups over two days of stroke play, becoming the first mid-am to win medalist honors at the event since 2013. His sizzling second-round 61—10 birdies against one bogey with a 30-foot eagle attempt at the last coming up just short—at Chaska Town Course sealed his surprising No. 1 seed in match play. Ellis, who played college golf at Florida Gulf Coast University and Ohio University nearly two decades earlier, earned a spot at Hazeltine National by winning the Florida State Amateur two months prior. He entered the week at No. 783 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. His legend only grew when he bought golf gloves and balls from the Hazeltine pro shop. “I don’t get free s—,” he told a Golf Channel reporter. Ellis’ tournament came to an end in the Round of 64 when he lost to Oklahoma State rising sophomore Ethan Fang, a golfer 20 years his junior, but Ellis will always have that 61, the accompanying USGA medal and whatever else he purchased at Hazeltine. —Alex Myers

MOST OVERBLOWN ACE

To anyone out there decrying Golf Digest picking one of their own, well, sorry. This story is too good not to retell. Much of Senior Writer Alex Myers’ persona at Golf Digest had centered around the pitiable fact the 7-handicap had never made a hole-in-one and was resigned that he never would. Turns out, he was waiting for the right situation.

As a content creator, it was a dream scenario. My fellow Loop podcast co-host and I got an amazing invite in June to play in the Coaches vs. Cancer event with the American Cancer Society at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. We were paired with former NBA star Carlos Boozer and ESPN personality Sean Farnham. Walking to the 15th tee, Myers declared it an “Ace Hole” in homage to Michael Block’s famous hole-in-one at the 2023 PGA Championship and said that we should video our shots. Indeed, I captured my good buddy’s pured 8-iron from 135 yards (we were into a decent wind). It became a two-minute segment on SportsCenter. “Blockie” sent Myers a congratulatory shoutout on Instagram, and, of course, Myers made it the lede in his weekly column, “The Grind.”

Boozer and Farnham went from fun playing partners to buddies for life—Boozer recorded a walk-and-talk interview, giddily shouting into his phone with his arm around Myers. Farnham spent the rest of the day furiously calling his ESPN producers, ensuring this ace would get prime-time billing. —Stephen Hennessey

RELATED: My hole-in-one seen ‘round the world

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Talley vs. Malixi, Round 1, took place in the final of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur in July. (Photograph by Mike Ehrmann/USGA)

It took three weeks for Rianne Malixi, 17, and Asterisk Talley, 15, to accomplish what the USGA had never seen in 129 years conducting national championships. While two players had faced each other more than once in the final of an individual USGA event over the years, never had a pair competed head-to-head in the final of two different championships, much less in the same year. In July at the U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur, Malixi, a native of the Philippines, coasted against Talley, 8 and 7. Talley, from Chowchilla, Calif., hoped to flip the script in their unprecedented August rematch at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, but fell once more, 3 and 2. (Talley can take solace in having claimed a USGA title herself in May at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.)

If you’re looking for bad blood between the two, you’re out of luck; by all accounts the newly minted rivals get along, but that doesn’t mean they’re not keeping score. It was Malixi, actually, getting redemption after finishing second by a distant six shots to Talley in March at the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley as well as missing the cut at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur while Talley posted a T-8 in April. The scoreboard appears tied or darn near in 2024, with more hopefully in store. —R.H.

MOST IMPROVED https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/1/GD0225_FEAT_GDHONORS_13.jpg

Photograph courtesy of Latarisha Foundation

The introverted LaTarisha Fountain said she’s always felt most comfortable playing sports. She ran track in high school, was a college basketball player and was the No. 2-ranked boxer in New York State in 2009. In 2023, the 47-year-old took her first golf lesson because she wanted to play with her new colleagues after transitioning to a job in the cloud-computing unit at Amazon. A year later, she was down to an 18 handicap and had broken 90 multiple times. In October, Fountain was recognized with a tee time alongside USGA CEO Mike Whan at a New Jersey State Golf Association day. She credits “Operation 36,” a format organized by her local golf course, Galloping Hill Golf Course in Kenilworth, as sparking her love. Start each hole 25 yards away from the green, and the goal is to finish nine holes in 36 strokes or less. Do that, and you move back another 25 yards next time. “It slows the game down, makes it simple and keeps giving a new goal,” she says. —Luke Kerr-Dineen

BEST PARTNER

We all wish we could have played a round with Bill Stemzynski in 2024. From Aug. 8 to Oct. 5, he witnessed three holes-in-one, all on his home course of Grosse Ile Golf and Country Club in Michigan. Each was on a different par 3, and each was a first ace for the person who made it. First up was Stemzynski’s brother-in-law Reed McDonagh at the member-guest. Their match was tied as they came to their last hole, No. 4, a 169-yard par 3. McDonagh knocked it in with an 8-iron and won a car, too.

On Sept. 20, Stemzynski played in the club’s pro-member tournament. On No. 13, Stemzynski’s friend and business partner Derek Salliotte chose a 9-iron for the front left pin. “It was 131 yards, and it hit a foot behind the pin with that perfect, checked spin, and rolled right in,” Stemzynski said.

On Oct. 5, Stemzynski and his wife, Emily, reserved an early tee time, so they could get home to watch football. The sixth hole has a partially obscured green and from 153 yards was a 6-iron for Emily. “She hit it, and I’m thinking, man, that has a chance,” Stemzynski said. “We got to the green and only saw my ball.” Emily thought she hit it over, but her husband urged her to check the cup. “She went crazy,” Stemzynski said.

The next weekend, Stemzynski rattled the flagstick on the same hole. The sound made him think he had finally become his own good luck charm, but there the ball was, four inches from the cup.

While Stemzynski waits patiently for his first hole-in-one, he’s happy to have witnessed so many. “It’s really fun; there’s so much energy when one goes in,” he says. He’ll have no shortage of groups to play with. “Word has been getting around. I’ve gotten a lot of invitations to play with people.” —K.L.

RELATED: A look back at last year’s Golf Digest Honors

COMING SOON: THE DINAH

This April, Golf Digest and Chevron will together present a new award for golfers who give back on the LPGA Tour. The Dinah will celebrate and preserve the legacy of Dinah Shore—a television and film star, passionate golfer and long-standing advocate for women’s professional golf. Shore was the visionary behind the Colgate Dinah Shore golf tournament, which she founded in 1972 before the event evolved into a major championship in 1983 and is now known as the Chevron Championship. Going forward, The Dinah will be awarded annually to a visionary leader who exemplifies dedication and generosity in empowering women, both on and off the golf course. Who will be the inaugural recipient? Watch this space.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com