Has Anyone Shot 57 on a Pro Golf Tour?

You know that there are pro golfers who have scored 59 in tournaments played on major pro golf tours. You might also know that there have even been some 58s recorded on pro tours. What about the score of 57 for an 18-hole round? Has any pro golfer, on any major pro golf tour, shot 57?

Yes. But the round — there has been only one so far — comes with a caveat.

David Carey's Round of 57

At the 2019 Cervino Open, a tournament on the Alps Tour, Irish golfer David Carey carded a score of 57 in the first round. He went on to the win the tournament in a playoff.

Before we tell you about that caveat, let's answer another question: Does the Alps Tour really qualify as a "major" tour? We define a major pro golf tour as one whose tournaments award points for the Official World Golf Ranking. And the Alps Tour is part of the OWGR system. It is a third-level tour in Europe: The Alps Tour feeds into the Challenge Tour, which feeds into the European Tour.

Now, the caveat: Carey's 57 happened on a short-course whose par is under 70. Golf Club Cervino, in the Italian Alps, is a par-69 course for daily play and only 5,796 yards long. It plays longer for the tour events, but the par is taken down to 68. Plus, the course is at altitude, so the already short course is effectively even shorter.

So, yes, a pro golfer has posted a score of 57 in a pro tournament played on one of the world's major golf tours. But it happened on a par-68 golf course that was under 6,000 yards long. (As such, it wouldn't qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records, which requires scores be posted on golf courses at least 6,500 yards long to qualify for record consideration.)