Here, long drive had waited for 30 years for a missionary in the pro game to jumpstart interest in their niche sport, and now he shows up, with long drive on life support? Word also soon trickled out that DeChambeau had forged a relationship with the brightest young star long drive had seen in years - a long-haired, soft-spoken fire-breather named Kyle Berkshire.īerkshire is to long drive what Jordan and Magic were to the NBA. DeChambeau said he’d bulked up in pursuit of speed and, by extension, distance, and that he’d learned by stealing the best practices of long drive pros.Įven with only a few hundred in attendance, the cameras still followed Bryson DeChambeau. He looked like a different person, with a thicker neck and meatier shoulders. Instead, players and a core group of sponsors came together to form the Professional Long Drivers Association - resuscitating the sport with shoestring budgets and grassroots events.Īt about the same time, DeChambeau emerged from the PGA Tour’s pandemic-induced hiatus with stories of 10,000-calorie days, endless protein shakes and intensive workouts - and with 40 pounds of new muscle. Sponsors scattered and the league quickly folded, leaving many to wonder if the sport had a future. The network’s decision was a death knell. In 2020, Golf Channel dropped the World Long Drive Championships at the beginning of the pandemic despite owning a majority stake in what was then called the World Long Drive Tour. The sport that showcases players putting a jolt into golf balls was in desperate need of a jolt itself. Even before this week, it wasn’t hard to see Bryson DeChambeau’s value to the world of long drive. Whether DeChambeau ever gets close to that distance is open to debate, but with his dedication to analysing and perfecting his game, plus his continuing ambition to prove himself as one of the biggest hitters in the world, it would probably be advisable not to put it past him.Bryson DeChambeau has been all smiles at the World Long Drive Championships this week. That was achieved by Mike Austin way back in 1974 when he hit a scarcely believable 515-yard drive at a US Senior National Open Qualifier. However, despite DeChambeau’s undoubted driving ability, he still has a way to go to beat the Guinness World Record for the longest drive in a competition. Considering Borgmeier hits drives for a living, that was a considerable achievement on DeChambeau’s part, especially as it came only a few months after he had undergone wrist surgery. While DeChambeau has yet to better that effort, his big-hitting exploits are still creating headlines, most notably when he finished runner-up to Martin Borgmeier at the 2022 World Long Drive Championship in Nevada. That was super close to being 550 pretty easily.” Afterwards, he told : “That was disappointing for me. Incredibly, DeChambeau wasn’t pleased with his effort considering the favourable elevation he had. Along the way, DeChambeau hit an incredible 480-yard drive on the par-5 777-yard eighth hole at The Reserve at Moonlight Basin in Montana.īryson DeChambeau crushes this ball 480 yards □ /Gds4kbWMKf July 7, 2021 After joining forces with Aaron Rodgers, the pair beat Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson. For the record, the longest drive on the PGA Tour in those years belonged to Scott Stallings, who hit a 460-yard monster on the 15th hole at TPC Scottsdale during the 2022 WM Phoenix Open.ĭespite DeChambeau's improvement in driving distances on the PGA Tour, the longest of his career to date came elsewhere, while he was competing in the The Match exhibition tournament in 2021. In 2021, he finished one place higher, albeit with a top drive 14 yards shorter than the previous year. Then, an injury-hit 2022 left him with a longest drive of “only” 403-yards in the same tournament, the Sentry Tour of Champions, before he signed for LIV Golf. After finishing tied for 62nd on the PGA Tour's Longest Drives list in 2019, he rose to sixth the following year with a longest drive of 428 yards at The Travelers Championship - 42 yards further than his best effort the previous year. He also began using specially designed irons with thicker grips, and the results were remarkable.įollowing a break in the schedule because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it didn't take long for DeChambeau's efforts to pay off. So, in late 2019 he embarked on a rigorous training regime to dramatically bulk up and improve his swing speed and driving distances. Nicknamed The Scientist, one of the areas DeChambeau sought to improve after turning professional was his muscle mass.
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