A Playoff For the Record Books

Chris Gilman’s 12-yard chip from the front of the green barely fell into the hole. Surrounding the green were members at Fox Run Golf Club in Yankton, South Dakota. It was 9:30 p.m. when the chip dropped, and the members honked their horns and flashed their lights. Gilman tried to calm them down. “We all know he’s going to make this,” Gilman said loudly to the crowd. Mitch Davis, who had recently turned pro after a career at Indiana University, lined up a 12-footer. 

This is the story of the longest sudden-death playoff in pro golf history. 

The longest sudden death playoff on the PGA Tour was played in 1949 at the Motor City Open. It went 11 holes before Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum were declared co-champions because of darkness. Since then, there have been multiple eight hole playoffs, with the last coming at the 2021 Travelers when Harris English outlasted Kramer Hickok.  

The European Tour had a 9-hole playoff at the 1989 Dutch Open, won by Jose Maria Olzazabal. According to GolfShake.com, the longest playoff in pro golf happened on the Japan Tour in 1976, when the legendary Peter Thomson  won on the 14th playoff hole. 

Last Sunday, that record was broken on a long-running mini-tour called The Dakotas Tour. 

The event was played in Yankton, South Dakota. A back nine 30 had allowed Gilman to track down Davis and the duo ended the 54 hole event at 16-under. The pair headed back to the 389-yard 18th hole to settle the tournament. Both players made uneventful pars. 

The pair walked in regulation but drove carts back to the 18th for the second time. Pars again. 

Then they headed for the difficult 9th. The 453-yard par 4 featured a tough tee shot to a nearly 90 degree dogleg. Again, the pair both made par. 

Then they headed over to the 15th hole, jumping around public play scattered around the course. Pars again. 

Gilman said he and Davis started to laugh while discussing how long the playoff was going. They had no idea it was just the beginning. 

The duo played 16, 17, and 18 for the third time. Both had chances at birdie that would have ended the playoff but weren’t able to convert. Davis made a six-footer for par on 17 to extend it. Seven holes and 14 pars combined. “It was a pillow fight for those first eight holes,” Gilman says.

The crowd following the match grew as word got out among members about the playoff.

The decision was made to the head to the first hole, a 351-yard par-4.  There, both players hit good drives and great pitches. For the first time the duo made birdies, tying yet again. 

Pars on the second hole led to the reachable par-5 3rd hole. The pair both had long eagle looks but weren’t able to capitalize. “We both had kick-ins for birdie,” Gilman says. 2-under through 10 holes and still tied. 

“It was ridiculous. We were both laughing about it, " Gilman told me. 

Holes four, five, and six produced more pars. Six of them to be exact. 

The seventh was another short par-5 and the pair had long eagle looks. Two more birdies. The pair didn’t know it but had just tied the longest sudden-death playoff in pro golf history. It was on to the long par-3 eighth. 

Two more pars and the record was broken. 

Back to the difficult ninth hole they went; the sixteenth hole of the playoff. They both hit good drives, but Gilman’s 7-iron approach left him 12 yards short of the pin. “It was a pretty straight forward chip,” he says.

Davis on the other hand hit a great approach to twelve feet. 

The pair had teed off for the start of the final round at 1:20 p.m. It was now nearly 9:30 and pretty dark. “We had time for maybe one more hole.” Gilman says.

With the green surrounded by carts Gilman looked over his chip. He hit a low running chip that landed just over the fringe and rolled perfectly into the cup. The crowd went crazy. “They were screaming, it was crazy!” Gilman says. One woman yelled “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Gilman got the crowd to calm down and told them Davis was going to make it anyway. If Davis made it they would extend it to a seventeenth hole. 

His putt slid by on the right edge. 

The pair laughed and hugged as the crowd cheered. Gilman won just over $7,000 for his win, Davis earned just over $4,000 for his runner-up finish. 

Nearly three hours after the pair completed their final round, 25 pars, seven birdies, and one clutch chip-in, the longest playoff in pro golf history had come to end. 

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