A St. Louis-area amateur golfer has resigned his membership at WingHaven Country Club after admitting he staged a hole-in-one during a recent member-member event.
Zach Holland, a former junior college golfer who carries roughly a 2-handicap, was competing in the tournament at the O’Fallon, Missouri, course earlier this month. The event included a hole-in-one prize pot. Holland was in the first group of the day.
According to his own account given on 101 ESPN St. Louis, Holland finished the first three holes with his playing partners, then told them he needed to take a personal phone call. He said he would go ahead and tee off on the par-3 fourth hole by himself to keep pace of play. When the rest of the group reached the green, Holland claimed he had thinned his tee shot and did not see where the ball finished. The players found his ball in the cup and celebrated what appeared to be an ace.
Suspicion arose because no one had actually witnessed the shot. Club officials reviewed security camera footage from a maintenance area near the fourth green. The video showed Holland driving toward that green well before his scheduled tee time that morning. Confronted with the evidence, Holland admitted he had placed the ball in the cup earlier and then acted out the rest of the scene.
Holland resigned his membership at WingHaven. In a Friday interview on “The Morning After” on 101 ESPN, he offered a full apology.
“There’s no excuse for what I did, and I was completely in the wrong,” Holland said. “There’s really no motivation. Just complete stupidity, and we were giving two shots back to the field, and that’s not an excuse. There’s no excuse for what happened.”
He added that he understood there would be consequences for the action.
WingHaven Country Club confirmed it was aware of the incident and that the matter had been addressed. The club has declined further public comment.
The story spread quickly through the local golf community and beyond after Holland’s radio appearance. In golf, few things carry more weight than the integrity of the scorecard and the honesty expected among players. Faking a hole-in-one, especially one tied to a prize pot, crosses a clear line. Holland’s decision to resign and speak publicly about the mistake closed the chapter at WingHaven, but it left a lasting mark on the club’s member-member event and a reminder of how quickly a single poor decision can unravel.
