Group sets world record, playing 24 hours of mini-golf to raise money for Kentucky flood victims

(CNN) — On a balmy July morning at a small mini-golf center in northern Kentucky, four local regulars tapped their opening strokes.

Their game was no different to the countless others being played across the globe that day, except for one not so miniature difference: it didn’t finish until the following morning.

After 24 hours, 116.5 rounds, 14,664 strokes, and almost 20 miles of walking, Putt-Putt Golf Erlanger became the home of a new Guinness World Record for the most holes of miniature golf in 24 hours by a foursome.

Pausing for nothing but the occasional short break, father-son duo Chris and Cole Hetzel, Tony Centers, and Bob Schoettinger powered through 2,097 holes of their beloved 18-hole local course to smash the existing record by 657.

The idea had begun as a joke with a passing comment by course owner Kevin Shea during one of its weekly tournaments last October. Yet it wasn’t a joke without basis, as the Hetzels happen to be a duo with serious pedigree for world-record-breaking endurance efforts in niche sports.

In June 2020, the Hetzel home garden in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, was transformed into a wiffleball field for an 11-player, 30-hour-and-one-minute marathon match of the baseball-like game. The following May, the pair went a minute further in setting a Guinness World Record for the longest marathon playing four square at 30 hours and two minutes.

To say Chris and Cole had caught the bug was an understatement. When their wiffleball record was pipped by 17 minutes, they reassembled a team and took back the crown in emphatic style, setting an eye-watering new benchmark just shy of 36 and a half hours.

“I think it’s safe to say we have an addiction to these endurance events at this point,” Cole, a cross-country athlete at DePauw University in Indiana, told CNN.

“There’s nothing like doing the same thing for a whole day straight. It’s a fun time.”