This Viral Cheating Incident Is The Craziest One I’ve Seen In Years

When it comes to outright cheating in golf, there aren’t that many options.

You can fudge the numbers on your scorecard. You can “find” a ball that wasn’t yours. You can pretend your four-man scramble group somehow shot a 46 to receive ceremonial pro shop credit (we still need to shame these people). The typical stuff.

Three months ago, I put together a list of the top cheating incidents in pro golf. All of them are some version of what you would expect with golfers trying to shave their score.

But this? This one is highly unusual.

For this incident, we head to the Member-Member at WingHaven Country Club just outside of St. Louis.

Zach Holland, a 2-handicap who played college golf at the NAIA level, was forced to resign his membership after faking a hole-in-one on the fourth hole of the event.

The incident has gone viral and Holland has even given an interview about it.

Holland planned a whole scheme to fake the ace

Playing in the first group off in the tournament, Holland’s round began normally. His group played the first three holes together.

But as the group was finishing the third hole, Holland told them he needed to take a phone call concerning his terminally ill grandmother. He had mentioned on the first tee there was a possibility this could happen.

To keep up with the pace of play, Holland went up and hit his tee shot at the par-3 fourth prior to his group getting there. Then he took the brief phone call before reuniting with his group at the green.

When he got to the green, Holland said he told his partners that he thinned his tee shot but did not see where the ball ended up.

The group then found the ball in the cup, assumed Holland made a hole-in-one and everyone went crazy.

It was believable enough, right? Holland is a good player and making a hole-in-one is a reasonable thing that could have happened.

But with significant money on the line in the form of a “hole-in-one pot”—and the fact Holland made the ace without witnesses—everyone involved was a little suspicious. Holland kept up the charade, insisting he made the hole-in-one. His group had discovered the ball in the hole together, after all.

No worries, there are security cameras! The superintendent grabbed the footage and the debate would be settled in short order.

Uh-oh. That was not good news for Holland.

The footage showed Holland parked his car near the fourth green an hour before his tee time. He had manually created a ball mark, placed the ball in the hole and then driven back to the clubhouse.

The jig was up. He immediately owned up to the scheme and resigned his membership.

“You do something as dumb as I did, there are consequences for that,” Holland said Friday during an interview with “The Morning After” show on 101 ESPN St. Louis.

“There’s no excuse for what I did, and I was completely in the wrong. 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 remains adamant that he is “not a cheater on the golf course” (I don’t know, man, you literally just cheated).

“I made a bad decision, and I have to suffer the consequences,” he said. “I’m trying to move forward as best I can and it’s been rough.”

The incident has now gone viral

Holland is under a lot of fire for his actions. TikTok, Twitter, ESPN, the New York Post … everyone is talking about what he did.

He said his wife and two young children have also received threats.

“I made a terrible mistake,” he said. “The lack of moral character—I can take the banter and the chatter and the heat because I deserve that from a golf perspective.

“What I am most worried about is my family … It’s not fair to them for me to put them in that situation where when they walk through a room, there is a stigma there that your dad is a (cheater). So questions that they may get asked or be getting asked down the road, that’s the worst part. The golf is secondary.”

That’s not right, but welcome to the Internet in 2026. And in the words of Taylor Swift, you play stupid games and you win stupid prizes.

Sean’s breakdown

I totally understand how golfers can feel a pressure to cheat. People make mistakes.

What really gets me on this one is how premeditated it was. Playing a wrong ball or changing your scorecard is typically a moment where the blood rushes to your head and you do something dumb. Especially for pro golfers, their livelihoods are on the line. It’s inexcusable but you can connect the dots.

Holland had many hours to think about this. He had to plan his entire day around it. He probably thought about it long before that morning began. Then he drove out there, created a ball mark and put the ball in the hole.

He had another couple of hours to abort! Even on the first few holes, he could have thought better of it. Yeah, the ball would have been in the hole on No. 4, but that could have been dismissed. Maybe someone was chipping around the green or there were kids fooling around. The day would have moved on and nobody would have cared to check the security tapes.

All of that time to turn around, and he still went ahead with it.

This wasn’t some incredibly important event, either. Yeah, there was money on the line, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. And did he not see the security cameras? Like how dumb can you be about this?

Oh, and he lies about his grandma dying? That’s super scummy.

He went through all of this and now Holland is in deep. Think about anyone wanting to hire him. Think about him trying to join another club.

Yeah, the news cycle will turn over—but the Internet never forgets. Holland’s name is always going to be associated with him being a cheater.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.