The objective was clear: they had to play a hole extending over more than 450 metres in less than one minute and 55 seconds. Achieving that feat would mean breaking one of the world records registered in the famous Guinness Book – in this case, held by Briton Steve Jeffs.

The challenge was set by four golfers from Marbella and the scenario chosen for them to face it was the 10th hole at Royal Guadalmina Golf Club’s North Course: a par-5, 478 metres long, handicap-2, featuring a straight, slightly downhill route to a green protected by three bunkers.

And so they went to work: Rubén Holgado, Antonio Arjona, Javier Luque and Manuel Aceña. The first three are professional golfers and the fourth, an amateur with a 6.7 handicap.

Their premise to achieve the record was simple: carry a bag with at least four clubs, start and finish with the same clubs, play a hole measuring more than 450 metres and always only strike the ball once it had stopped. And run – run a lot. The rest of the challenge followed the same rules of any other “normal” game of golf, albeit with the added difficulty of having to complete it in a sprint.

So their race against the clock began, and all four successfully met the challenge. The fastest was Holgado, who with a time of 1.35 minutes lowered Jeffs’ world record by 15 seconds. Luque completed the hole in 1.37, Aceña in 1.40 and Arjona in 1.46.

There will be a delay before the Guinness Book of Records can recognise this new time. The four Marbella golfers have sent a video of shorts to the organisation that includes the entire hole layout, plus a certificate from Royal Guadalmina confirming that the distance of the hole in question is more than 450 metres. According to one of the four protagonists, Arjona, a native of Sevilla but now settled in Marbella where he works for Holiday Golf, "The idea came up when one of us saw on Facebook that this record had been broken and we started talking about it. We ‘took the bait’ and decided we were going to beat it."

Their preparations were not particularly exhausting. "The truth is we did not do any. In fact, all four of us went to the course, we chose the hole, and we made several attempts each – some of us three and others four. None of us achieved it on the first attempt because the balls did not go where they were supposed to go." However, after several attempts – running and carrying a light bag – the decisive moment finally arrived and they fulfilled their objective.

Now they must wait for at least three months for the Guinness organisation to accept as valid the requested evidence provided – and declare it as a new record. They are in no hurry, especially bearing in mind that if they had wanted to obtain a certificate of the new record in just a few days they would have had to pay €15,000, the amount required to arrange a large on-site deployment of the Guinness world record team. In this case they will not have to spend a single euro: just arm themselves with a healthy dose of patience.

Arjona says that at the moment he and his golfing mates are not thinking about trying to break another new record, although "if one appears on Facebook, we will certainly ‘take the bait’ again”.