Zach Holland, a 34-year-old legal recruiter, resigned in disgrace from WingHaven Country Club in Missouri after admitting he faked a hole in one during a tournament to collect a cash prize. The scandal has upended his reputation as what one member called a "phenomenal" golfer and reignited questions about wins at two other clubs he previously belonged to.
"It's essentially murder one," a WingHaven member told the Daily Mail. Former clubmates said that moments after claiming the prize-winning shot, Holland sent a video to a friends' group chat celebrating the feat as he plucked his ball from the hole.
"And then after the fact, to play it off the way he did with his so-called friends who he essentially betrayed and took money from... it's psychopathic to an extent, it's a mental illness, in my opinion," the former friend said.
Golf is built on an honor code rare in sport: players call their own penalties, keep their own scores, and are trusted to act honestly when nobody is watching. That is part of why Holland's actions have provoked such backlash.
Pattern at previous clubs
WingHaven was reportedly Holland's third country club in the St. Charles County area in five years. Members said he left his previous two clubs, Lake Forest and Old Hickory, under circumstances now facing renewed scrutiny.
At Old Hickory, Holland allegedly collected a hole-in-one pot on more than one occasion, with members claiming his wife was the only witness. Old Hickory and Lake Forest did not respond to questions from the Daily Mail about Holland's memberships or his departures from the clubs.
Several members also described Holland as a heavy sports bettor and speculated money may have motivated the scheme at WingHaven. "I played with him quite often. I know he's a big sports bettor. I know he is quite active on gambling apps," one member said. "Our group chat suspicion is that there's gotta be some monetary angle here."
"He bets on all of it, college football is a big thing, but he bets on baseball, he bets on golf, everything," another member said.
The staged shot
On July 31, Holland signed up for WingHaven's hole-in-one club, something he had done since joining the club the previous year. The next morning he arrived to play in the tournament an hour before his tee time.
After reaching the third hole, Holland told his playing group his grandmother had fallen and was being taken to hospital, warning he might need to take an urgent call. He said he would head to the next tee ahead of them to keep up "pace of play." That next hole was a par-three.
When the group caught up, Holland told them he had already swung and "thinned" a shot toward the green. "Maybe it went in," one member recalled him saying. When they reached the green, a Titleist was sitting in the cup.
At 8:20 a.m., Holland messaged a WingHaven members' group chat: "Holy s***. He shoots, he scores." Friends were initially ecstatic, joking he was on the hook for a big bar tab. "This is the worst time to make a hole in one," one member wrote. "You'll have 160 members drinking on your tab. We'll see if we can get this up to $5,000."
Suspicion and security footage
Doubts crept in as the messages rolled in. One golfer privately remarked, "How does this guy get so lucky?" None of Holland's friends had clearly seen or heard the ball go in, and one member grew suspicious after rewatching his celebratory video and noticing the supposed pitch mark looked nothing like the deep craters left by that morning's wet conditions.
The group compared notes and contacted assistant manager Matt Renner, who asked superintendent Andy Burley whether newly installed cameras near the fourth hole had captured anything. The footage showed Holland arriving at the fourth hole around 6:20 a.m., an hour before his tee time, getting out of his vehicle and walking toward the green before disappearing from view for roughly two minutes.
The cameras did not capture Holland physically putting a ball in the cup, according to the member briefed on the footage. When club officials confronted him, Holland initially denied wrongdoing, but once told about the security footage, he quickly resigned his membership. His team's tournament results were struck from the standings.
Story goes public
The scandal became public days later when WingHaven issued an updated tournament result to members, and the story quickly spread through the golfing world. Group chats and social media filled with memes and AI-generated spoofs riffing on the grandmother excuse, drawing comparisons to Happy Gilmore, in which Adam Sandler's character takes up golf to pay for his sick grandmother's medical bills.
Holland later admitted on a St. Louis sports radio show, 1010 ESPN St. Louis, that he had placed the ball in the hole. "I'm not a cheater on the golf course," he said. "I made a bad decision and I have to suffer the consequences." He called it "the worst thing you can do on a golf course," adding: "You do something as dumb as I did, there are consequences for that. Some are very fair, some aren't as fair."
In a statement, Renner said the matter had been dealt with "promptly" by the club. "We care deeply about the integrity of the game and the experience we provide for our members and guests. Because this situation involved the actions of an individual and has been resolved, we consider it closed and have no further comment."
A golfer's two sides
Away from golf, Holland had been regarded as friendly, generous and devoted to his wife and young family. Members who routinely played with him said his genuine talent made the scandal harder to stomach. "He's already a phenomenal player, legitimately good," a former friend and clubmate said. "He has won amateur events."
Resurfaced footage from a highly promoted 2021 amateur putting competition showed Holland proudly celebrating a victory on the green. "And I'm like, Dude, is that not enough? Like, you're already a legitimate plus two, why are you cheating?" the friend said.
On the course, one member said Holland had a different persona: "very competitive," at times "bordering on arrogant." "He's very sure of himself, but he's a very good player, so he can back up the talk," the member said.
Members said Holland's reputation has been permanently damaged, speculating he would likely have to move out of state to escape the stigma. "He's done for," one club member said.
One friend said Holland called him the morning after the scandal broke. "He was very contrite, yeah, sick about it," the friend said. "He said, 'I need to get help.' And I said, 'You do.'" The friend told Holland he needed distance: "I don't really have much to say to you right now. I'm still processing everything. I hope you can find help and, in the foreseeable future, I can't communicate with you."
