Tour Players in Long Drive Competition

[Groucho Valentine 305]

I cant really say, but being that a tour level ballstriker hits the center of the face nearly all of the time, id say the stupid long guys like Dustin Johnson or Bubba could complete with Long Drive pros with a day or so of practice. I was watching Vijay Singh hit drivers on the range years ago and after that i felt like he could hit it like 500 yards if he really wanted to.... Never have a seen someone hit a ball so far with seemingly so little effort. 

[Avalanche 6]

29 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Yes, they're generally very big. Usually, with tons of fast twitch muscles.

Jamie Sadlowski is the exception and not the rule.

 

I saw Jamie Sadlowski play in a charity even in my town a couple years back.  There were several PGA players there.  Sadlowski's tee shots just sounded different--both the whoosh of the club and the impact.   Here's a pretty good article on him: 

Quote

Out on the range at Cordillera, Sadlowski steps up and flushes about a dozen 7-irons—240 or so—before catching one thin. His hand-eye coordination is Tour quality. His 20-degree hybrid is his ? gear-down club. He hits it straight, and still well beyond the drives of even the longest Tour pros.  LINK

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by Avalanche

[billchao 1,709]

18 hours ago, Shollacolla said:

@bones75 @billchao Long time reader of TST, but first time posting. I had to when I saw this topic. ~12 years ago when I was about 8 years old I actually asked David Duval this question. My dad is in athletics industry and I was lucky to have dinner with David, his caddy and a few other people after a small charity type tournament (this is when he was really struggling).  Funny thing is the very first thing David asked was how long their driver shafts were, then him and his caddy did some math and then David said "I don't think I could compete, but I'm sure many on the tour could... not sure if they could win the championship though." David further went on to say that he can't really swing any harder then he already does on the tour, that there's not much more he can put into to it than he does already, even if he had multiple tries. Me and my dad talked about it further (long drives were a thing for me when I was 8) and we surmised that if he tried it for a few weeks he could probably develop a "long drive contest" swing, but as already stated no one at the table actually thought for a second that a PGA player would try it.

Thanks for sharing this story.

Long Drive is almost a different swing. A lot of the guys that compete will lift their front foot in the backswing to get as much turn as possible. Some even bend the lead elbow to add another lever. There's a lot of rotation and extension in the downswing. It's geared towards power at the cost of control.

I'm sure the faster swingers on the PGA Tour are talented enough to learn it, but seeing as how that would likely alter their swing mechanics, it probably will hurt their scores on the course. I don't see anyone on tour who'd be willing to do that.

[Lihu 741]

45 minutes ago, Avalanche said:

 

I saw Jamie Sadlowski play in a charity even in my town a couple years back.  There were several PGA players there.  Sadlowski's tee shots just sounded different--both the whoosh of the club and the impact.   Here's a pretty good article on him: 

 

Yeah, I also know what it's like standing behind someone who hits really far!

[bones75 31]

This just trivia. I saw this vid of koepka

In this instance, his final shot read a clubhead speed was 122.7, and he remarked "that's all I got". Long driver competition players can go up to ~150 (w. a longer shaft).

I'm not making a point here, Was just interesting trivia for me to see the numbers side by side, as I'm not knowledgeable on golf swing numbers as many of you are.

[Vinsk 1,235]

Of course I’ve also seen long drive comps where the driver got zero shots in bounds and all the next guy had to do was hit one in bounds (I think 275) as a minimum and he couldn’t do it. In those cases the big hitters on tour would do that no problem.

[Killa 32]

10 hours ago, bones75 said:

This just trivia. I saw this vid of koepka

In this instance, his final shot read a clubhead speed was 122.7, and he remarked "that's all I got". Long driver competition players can go up to ~150 (w. a longer shaft).

I'm not making a point here, Was just interesting trivia for me to see the numbers side by side, as I'm not knowledgeable on golf swing numbers as many of you are.

“That’s all I got” - using his swing. Coiling back even more and further back would add speed. But probably took a dramatic toll on his accuracy. 

Edited April 30 by Killa

[saevel25 1,604]

42 minutes ago, Killa said:

“That’s all I got” - using his swing. Coiling back even more and further back would add speed. But probably took a dramatic toll on his accuracy. 

Not that long drive champions need accuracy all that much.

[Killa 32]

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Not that long drive champions need accuracy all that much.

 

Yes. My point was that Brooks could swing much faster if he took more of a baseball approach to the hit - lift his left leg and swing back more. But that’s not in the interest of his wallet. 

[Cantankerish 46]

The guys are mostly mountains. I have seen these guys swing. It’s both impressive and horrendous.  I have to wonder how long they can punish their torsos like that.

If I’m a successful PGA player, I do not think it is worth taking chances swinging like that very much.

That said, I am pretty sure that there is an LPGA player on the women’s side though.  I do not know her name.

[Keep It Simple 18]

There are no tour players that would have a chance of winning the World Long Drive Championship against today's crop of competitors.  Not Bubba, DJ, Brooks, Tony....  They wouldn't even make the semi finals.  Doesn't matter how hard they train or how fast they could swing the competition long driver.  The guys winning are every bit as good of athletes.  Some of them come from other professional sports like baseball.