The British Amateur featured a 19(!)-man playoff – and that wasn’t even the craziest part

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There are playoffs and then there’s what happened earlier this week in Ireland at the Amateur Championship, a.k.a. the British Amateur.

The strokeplay portion of the event that makes the cut for matchplay at the top-64 and ties produced a 19-man playoff. That’s right, nineteen golfers. And that wasn’t even the craziest part.

It was a 19-for-18 playoff, which was always going to leave one guy feeling extra crappy about not advancing. First, here’s a look at the leaderboard logjam that caused this madness:

Then here’s a look at the actual madness as it was about to unfold:

What a wild scene. So how did the tournament organise this playoff? It looks like they broke up what was basically a golf trip into three fivesomes and a foursome. And everyone waited after playing one hole until everyone else was done.

You could argue that this bizarre situation got even crazier by the fact that only one extra hole was needed. Poor Bob van der Voort made a triple-bogey – and all 18 other golfers beat that to end a long day at Ballyliffin Golf Club.

Sorry, Bob, that’s a brutal beat. Hopefully, the guys advancing bought him a drink. All of them, that is.