Baker challenges Soderberg’s Dubai dash: ‘I was much faster’

Peter Baker isn’t happy that the European Tour have handed their fastest round of golf accolade to Sebastian Soderberg.

Soderberg raced round the final round of the 2020 Dubai Desert Classic in 1 hour 36 minutes, but Baker, a three-time European Tour winner in the 1980s and ’90s, tweeted that he and Paul Way played a round in 72 minutes at the Lancome Trophy, before suggesting Mark Roe and Robert Lee were even quicker at another event.

This is NOT the fastest round on tour myself and Paul Way in the last round of Lancôme Trophy went round in 72 minutes and I think Mark Roe and Robert Lee might have gone around quicker in another event @EuropeanTour https://t.co/1twDuBx8zD

— Peter Baker (@peterbakergolf) January 26, 2020

• Related: Soderberg ‘always wanted to try’ jogging between shots

No word from Roe or Lee, but Baker later tweeted he “shot 74 or 75” and that he “got a telling off from the promoter but got given a Lancome watch by the sponsors”.

He added: “We had a crowd running with us and the caddies.”

And after a bit of digging it seems it might be true. So does Baker have a legit claim to the fastest round of golf in European Tour history?

According to a Liverpool Echo article we found in the British Newspaper Archive, Baker and Way did indeed play the 6,756-yard Saint-Nom-La-Breteche course in Paris in 1 hour 12 minutes during the 1990 Lancome Cup.

It, reads the report, “set an unofficial European record time for a tournament round”.

Ah. “Unofficial”. Which begs the question why wasn’t it official? And how on earth did they do it with two people? It also makes you wonder if this is all worth it.

So here’s to Baker and Way, who, until we hear from Roe and Lee, are the unofficial fastest players in European Tour history.

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