I am not a superstitious person by nature, but there have been times playing APBA Golf where I’ve felt cursed by the dice roller. This seems to have happened a lot lately, as I muddle through some difficult rounds for my replay of the 2024 PGA Championship. Anyone who’s played APBA Golf more than a handful of times can surely relate. While it’s disappointing to finish a few strokes over par with some of the world’s best golfers on a fairly easy course (Bluegrass/Valhalla), those lackluster scores don’t begin to compare with some of the truly awful rounds I logged in 2025.
My two worst rounds in 2025 were played at Pacific Canyon (Torrey Pines South) under Calm, Dry conditions on March 1. Lexi Thompson (2024) shot an 85 (+13), and Andrea Lee (2024) was just a stroke behind at 84 (+12). Lee racked up five penalty strokes to Thompson’s three. The only reason Lee edged her out is because she putted slightly better. Lee had 25 putts (90 ft.) to Thompson’s 27 (74 ft.).
For perspective, after 46 rounds my average score at Pacific Canyon is 74.6, which can be played as a par 71 or 72. Thompson and Lee were joined by Nelly Korda (2024) and Jin-young Ko (2024) in that round. Korda shot a 73 (+1), while Ko could do no better than a 78 (+6).
The killer hole for all but Korda was the 575-yard par 5, No. 9. Shots more than 30 yards left of the centerline run the risk of being out of bounds. Korda birdied it, but Ko had a 6, while Thompson thrashed out a 7 with one ball OB, and Lee limped in with a 10 after knocking three balls OB. In case you aren’t familiar with the layout of the hole, here’s what it looks like.
The next worst rounds relative to par in 2025 were 11-over, recorded on three different courses: Jake Knapp (2024) finished with an 83 at Palmetto Island (Kiawah), Hideki Matsuyama (2024) had an 82 at Bluegrass, and Susie Berning (1971) scored an 81 at Empire (BethPage Black). None of these players had fewer than 31 putts. Here’s a summary of the worst round scores from 2025.
Despite these poor performances, Tom Watson (1977) and Adam Schenk (2023) retain the co-honor of worst round of all-time in my database. Watson shot an 86 (+14) at Gopher Lakes (Whistling Straits) in 2022, while Schenk had an 84 (+14) at Acorn Hill (Oak Hill) in 2024.
I added a fair number of APBA courses to my collection in 2025. Naturally, each of these will have its own “worst round of the year” even if I only played it once. Many of the 23 worst rounds per course that occurred in 2025 fall into that category. So, I’ll focus more on the ones that happened at courses I began playing before last year.
This includes Birthplace (St. Andrews) where six golfers had rounds of 8-over par during my 2024 Women’s Open replay. Sandhills (Pinehurst No. 2) also makes the list, where four golfers turned in rounds of 5-over par in 2025. Of course, the aforementioned rounds by Thompson (+13, Pacific Canyon), Berning (+11, Empire), Knapp (+11, Kiawah), and Matsuyama (+11, Bluegrass) qualified as well.
Here is the full, alphabetical list of worst rounds by course relative to par, dating back to 2020.
I added 512 rounds of golf to my database last year. Of these, 345 were with LPGA players (67%). As such, they are prominently represented among the most notorious performances of 2025:
- Eighteen different golfers had rounds of 8-over par or worse. One golfer, Ally Ewing (2022), did it twice. She was 10-over (82) at Pacific Canyon in February, and 8-over (78) at Sooner Hills (Southern Hills) in May. As noted above, Lexi Thompson (2024) had the worst round in 2025 (+13) at Pacific Canyon.
- Eleven golfers had hole scores of 8 or worse. All but one of these were by women. The exception was Brian Harman (2024). Andrea Lee’s 10 spot on No. 9 at Pacific Canyon topped the list for the year. The current record holder is Angel Cabrera (2007) with an 11 on No. 7 at Hoylake in 2024.
- There were two 5-putts and 16 4-putts in 2025. All but one of these were at Birthplace, which has infamously large greens. The exception was a 4-putt by Gardner Dickinson, Jr. (1971) on No. 12 at Metro D.C. (Congressional). Alison Lee (2024) and Tardy Bailey (2024) 5-putted holes 3 and 1 at Birthplace, respectively. Luke List (2022) and Keith Mitchell (2022) are the only other golfers to 5-putt. They did that in 2023. Aside from Dickinson, the only other male on the 4-putt or worse list for 2025 is Jake Knapp (2024) with a 4-putt on No. 18 at Bluegrass.
- The “shortest” long putt for a round was five feet, as has been the case four years running now. It happened nine times in 2025. Shane Lowry (2020) set the record of three feet in 2021.
- Minjee Lee (2023) had the shortest Total Distance of Putts Made in a round last January at Sandhills (35 feet). Joe Campbell (1962) and Shane Lowry (2020) hold the record at 34 feet set in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
- The most putts in a round in 2025 was 41 by Alison Lee (2024) at (where else?) Birthplace. This topples the record of 40 putts set by Bryson DeChambeau (2022) in 2023.
- The “shortest” long drive of the day for the women was 245 yards by Jin-young Ko (2024). This ties the record set by Lizette Salas (2022) in 2023 and repeated by Sandra Palmer (1975) in 2024. For the men in 2025, Bob Goalby (1971) had the “shortest” long drive of the day at 275 yards. The men’s record of 270 yards is co-held by Irwin Hale (1971) who did it in 2023 and Colt Knost (2016) who followed suit in 2024.
- Andrea Lee (2024) tied the record for most penalty strokes in a round with 5 at Pacific Canyon. Lydia Ko (2023) had five at The Stadium Course (TPC Sawgrass) in 2024, and Abraham Ancer (2020) did the same thing there in 2021.