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

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

The stroke-play portion of the event that makes the cut for match play 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, meaning the amateurs competed for ONE spot. Which presumably left 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 organize this playoff? It looks like they broke up what was basically a golf outing 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.