Rhein Gibson - a golfer who (hat tip: Golf Digest) has very modest experience on the Nationwide Tour and a few Australian pro tournaments, and is ranked 1,444th in the world rankings - has posted a score of 55. For 18 holes. On a legitimate (meaning full-sized, regulation) golf course.

The golf course is River Oaks Golf Club in Edmond, Okla., and the round took place on May 12, 2012. River Oaks is an 18-hole course with a par of 71, and Gibson was playing the tips from around 6,800 yards.

It's the second round of 55 known. The first was recorded by former PGA Tour and Champions Tour player Homero Blancas in the early 1960s, but that round occurred on a 9-holer with two sets of tees that was a par-70 but only a little longer than 5,000 yards.

Even his home country Sydney Morning Herald described Gibson as "little known." He's 26 years old, and he must really love River Oaks because a short time before the 55 Gibson established a course record of 60. It's a pretty safe bet that his new course record of 55 will never be broken, eh?

Before turning pro, Gibson played collegiately at Oklahoma Christian University, an NAIA school (NAIA being several divisions below NCAA), and made the NAIA All-American team. He currently plays on the mini-tour Golfweek National Pro Tour.

Playing with two others, Gibson started his round on Hole 10, opening with a par. Following that were an eagle, a birdie, an eagle, then five straight birdies for a 26 over his first nine holes. On the second nine, Gibson started with two pars, then made three birdies, a par and three more birdies for a 29 and a total of 55. In all, he had 12 birdies and two eagles.

"I just kind of got hot I guess and every putt I hit went in, that's the best I can explain it to be honest," Gibson told the SMH.

His playing partners posted scores of 69 and 74. Imagine shooting 74 and losing by 19 ...

See also:
Lowest 18-hole scores in golf

Our latest roundup of new golf equipment arriving in pro shops leads off with a pair of putters: the Odyssey Flip Face and Nike Method Midnight. The Flip Face is as it sounds - the golfer can rotate the putter face end-over-end to switch to a different face insert material.

The gallery also includes irons, a remote-control cart for walkers, outerwear and apparel, plus a golf rules app based on some of the best "plain English" books about the golf rules. View the gallery

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TaylorMade RocketBallz 3-wood review

Should the PGA Tour crack down on slow play? Kevin Na's glacial pace at The Players Championship has set a lot of tongues wagging on the issue. Of course, Na has been a very slow player for years, as have quite a few other tour members.

The tour has slow play rules in place already that would probably speed up play if they were simply enforced - because enforcing them would lead to penalty strokes. As it stands, the PGA Tour hasn't assessed a penalty stroke to a player because of slow play in 20 years.

Is an individual golfer's pace of play even the main issue in overlong rounds? In comments made prior to The Players Championship, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said no. Finchem said the issue is one of logistics: With 150-plus player fields, there are inevitable bottleneck areas on every golf course where play is going to back up.

We see that on the courses we play on busy days. Those par-5s where players wait to have a go at the green in two. On particularly busy days, just about any par-3. Those are places where recreational golfers on the local course will have to wait on a busy day, and they are places where the pros in a large field are going to wait, too. Finchem claimed that reducing field size to, say, 120 players, would solve the issue. But we all know there's zero chance of that happening (and Finchem wasn't proposing it, merely claiming field size and course logistics play a larger role in long tour rounds than the pace of individual golfers). But we've also all seen very long rounds in short-field pro tournaments, and "bottlenecking" can't explain 6-hour matches at the Ryder Cup.

In my opinion, absolutely nothing will be done about slow play on the PGA Tour until or unless one thing happens: until or unless the television networks state, or the tour comes to believe, that PGA Tour telecasts will be worth less money unless pace of play improves. Otherwise, there are too many players - probably a majority - who think, "I'm playing for millions of dollars, I'll take as long on a shot as I need."

Unless it starts to hit players and the tour in the pocketbook, slow play in tour events will be around forever. And so will complaining about slow play in tour events.

See also:
PGA Tour slow play policy
How recreational golfers can avoid slow play

This week in golf features the HP Byron Nelson Championship on the PGA Tour, plus match play tournaments on both the European and LPGA tours.

On the LPGA Tour, it's the Sybase Match Play Championship, where the defending champion is Suzann Pettersen.

On the Euro Tour, it's the Volvo World Match Play Championship, a tournament that started as a showcase for golfers represented by a single agent. Luckily for fans, that agent represented the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

The defending champ is Ian Poulter, and others in the 24-man field include Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Justin Rose and Charl Schwartzel. The format groups those players into threes, and each group plays round-robin. The top two in each group advance to the round of 16, where 18-hole knockout matches continue until a winner is crowned.

And on the PGA Tour, it's a quick turnaround for Players Championship winner Matt Kuchar, who headlines the Nelson field. If you want to have another look at Kevin Na's unusual waggling routine, you'll have to wait: he's not here. (But, then, we're used to waiting on Na.) The defending champ is Keegan Bradley, and others in the field include Jason Day, Jason Dufner, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, Adam Scott and Vijay Singh.