In golf stroke mechanics, a drive, also known as a tee shot, is a long-distance shot played from the tee box, intended to move the ball a great distance down the fairway towards the green.
In golf stroke mechanics, a drive, also known as a tee shot, is a long-distance shot played from the tee box, intended to move the ball a great distance down the fairway towards the green.
The top 115 longest hitters on the PGA tour in 2017 averaged a drive of 290 yards or over. [1] Some of the biggest hitters on the female tour, such as Maude-Aimee Leblanc, average just below 280 yards. [2] As of 2011, Watson had the longest average drive in professional golf, with an average drive of 315.2 yards, [1] capable of generating a ball speed of 194 mph and drives of up to 370 yards. [3]
On the 2019 PGA Tour, the average driving distance was 293.8 yards, a 2.3 yard drop attributed to weather conditions. [4]
Mike Austin holds the world record for the longest drive in professional play, driving 515 yards at the Winterwood Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1974, blasting it 65 yards past the flag on the par-4 fifth. [5] His golf swing, known as The Mike Austin Swing, is practiced and taught by current golf professionals. Other notable swings are Ben Hogan's swing, Jim Furyk's swing, and Tiger Woods' swing.
Golf driving is big business in the United States and golf driving instruction is a multi-million-dollar business with many manuals and instructors offering their expertise to maximize the drives of their consumers.
According to professionals, flexibility, technique and form are very important in a drive, as a flexible player is able to generate a longer drive by having the ability to swing with a wider arc to get the club up to a greater speed and thereby impart more momentum to the ball. Some of the world's longest drivers who are not professional golfers but compete in Long Drive contests such as the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship, such as Jamie Sadlowski and Mike Dobbyn, are capable of regularly hitting a ball over 400 yards and over 220 mph. [3]
Two-time World Long Drive champion Sadlowski is of average height and slight of build but is able to generate drive distances of up to 445 yards, far beyond those of some of the more powerfully built professional golfers, because of his unique flexibility and leanness of build. [6] Motion Golf, a company that creates sophisticated 3D swing animations of players, has deduced that in his swing he rotates his shoulder 166 degrees, but his hips move only 49 degrees; Tiger Woods averages around 85 degrees in comparison. He claims that the secret behind his unusually long drive is to "Think swing fast, not hard." [6]
However, the official world record holder, Mike Dobbyn, whose longest drive is a world record 551 yards, is 6 ft 8 in and a muscular 310 pounds, implying that raw power is also very important, particularly in the left shoulder and right pectoral (for a right-handed golfer) and in the twitch muscles on the left side. [7] Several of the past RE/MAX winners, such as Sweden's Viktor Johansson, have also been at least 6 ft 5 in and near 300 pounds and five-time winner Jason Zuback was an amateur powerlifter.
In February 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first person to golf anywhere other than Earth. He smuggled a golf club and two golf balls on board Apollo 14 with the intent to golf on the Moon.
William Ben Hogan was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He is notable for his profound influence on golf swing theory, inventing the idea of practicing golf and his ball-striking ability.
John Patrick Daly is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. Daly is known primarily for his driving distance off the tee, his non-country-club appearance and attitude, his exceptionally long backswing, the inconsistency of his play, and his personal life. His two greatest on-course accomplishments are his "zero-to-hero" victory in the 1991 PGA Championship, and his playoff victory over Costantino Rocca in the 1995 Open Championship.
The following is a glossary of the terminology currently used in the sport of golf. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Old names for clubs can be found at Obsolete golf clubs.
Long drive is a sport where players compete to hit or drive a golf ball the farthest. Top long drivers compete professionally in events and exhibitions.
Michael Hoke Austin was an American golf professional and kinesiology expert, specializing in long drives.
In golf, par is the predetermined number of strokes that a proficient golfer should require to complete a hole, a round, or a tournament. For scoring purposes, a golfer's number of strokes is compared with the par score to determine how much the golfer was either "over par", "under par", or was "even with/equal to par".
Brittany Grace Lincicome is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. She currently resides in Gulfport, Florida.
Gerry Lester "Bubba" Watson Jr. is an American professional golfer. He has two major championships, with victories at the Masters Tournament in 2012 and 2014, and a total of 12 PGA Tour wins. In February 2015, Watson reached a career-high 2nd place in the Official World Golf Ranking. Watson has played in the LIV Golf League since 2022.
Golf equipment encompasses the various items that are used to play the sport of golf. Types of equipment include the golf ball, golf clubs, and devices that aid in the sport.
Robert Ira Garrigus is an American professional golfer who is currently a member of the PGA Tour. He won the 2010 Children's Miracle Network Classic, the last event of the PGA Tour season, to guarantee exempt status on the PGA Tour through the end of the 2012 season.
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit a ball into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Sean Foley is a Canadian born golf instructor, who resides in Orlando, Florida and has coached Tiger Woods, Lydia Ko, Sean O'Hair, Hunter Mahan, Stephen Ames, An Byeong-hun, Cameron Champ, Michael Kim, Erik van Rooyen, Sam Horsfield, Justin Rose and Lee Westwood, as well as other PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and LIV Golf professionals. Foley also coached many players on PGA Tour Canada, including players such as Chris Baryla. Foley began working with Tiger Woods during the summer of 2010.
Monte Scheinblum is an American professional golfer, and the son of former Major League Baseball All Star outfielder Richie Scheinblum. While he competed on the Nike Tour, he became known especially for his long driving, where success is achieved by a golfer hitting a golf ball the farthest. In 1992 he won the National Long Driving Championship in the United States, and was the world long driving champion.
Mike Dobbyn is an American professional long-drive golfer who holds the world record for the farthest drive in history: a recorded drive at 551 yards. In regular professional golf, the hardest hitters average just over 300 yards. However, although his longest drive is 551 yards, most of his drives range between 350 and 450 yards. He has a considerable physical advantage over many of the other drivers, with a height of 6'8" and weight of 310-5 pounds. He won the 2007 World Long Drive Championships and has reached the finals on three occasions but has been beaten by rival Jamie Sadlowski twice in 2008 and 2009.
Jamie Sadlowski is a Canadian professional long driver, golfer and ice hockey player from St. Paul, Alberta. One of the longest drivers in the world with a personal best of 445 yards, he won the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship successively in 2008 and 2009 and has competed in over a hundred long driving events and demonstrations.
The Volvik World Long Drive Championship is an annual long drive competition in the sport of golf. It was first held in 1974, and since 2000 has comprised Open, Masters (over-45s) and Women's events.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to golf:
Cameron Mackray Champ is an American professional golfer from Sacramento, California.
Gary Wiren is a PGA Master Professional instructor. Wiren was the Director of Education, Learning, and Research for the PGA of America between 1972 and 1985, during which time he produced the "Laws, Principles, and Preferences" of golf swing instruction. He is the founder of three golf schools, and is now the senior director of instruction for Trump Golf Properties. Wiren is a member of both the PGA Hall of Fame and the World Golf Teachers' Hall of Fame. As an author, he has written fourteen books, and Wiren is also the founder of Golf Around the World.
Terry Wayne Forcum was an American golfer who competed as a professional long drive athlete, winning the World Championship in 1983.