My First Long Drive Competition

Ad and I got up at 7:30am on Saturday - typically a cardinal sin in our house - and headed to Little River Golf Course to compete in the Sandhills Shootout. It was to be my first long drive competition after working for a few weeks (well, 3 lessons).

Not knowing what to expect, I was pretty nervous. To boot, the weather in the morning was pretty crappy. For the last few days we'd had storms, and the morning was no different. So the grid was completely soaked, meaning your ball was going to roll no where. When we got there, it was raining on and off. I went ahead and decided to hit some golf balls to warm up...even though I wasn't going to hit until around 3 and it wasn't even 11am yet. I was hitting the ball fairly well which helped my confidence.



The tournament started. After watching 22 other players hit, it was my turn. The furthest ball hit to that point was 361 yards. In my group of four hitters, the top 2 distances advanced. I'm pretty sure the first ball I hit was my best. I didn't try and hit it hard just wanting to get it in the 60 yard wide grid (balls that landed outside the grid were out of bounds). Straight as an arrow, and good contact. 349 yards with my Alpha 8.5 loft driver! Holy cow, I thought I was hitting balls around 310...not FLYING them close to 350 yards. Another huge boost to my confidence.

Then my nerves started to get to me. My hands started to shake. They shook so bad, I could barely put the ball on the tee! My next few drives, I didn't make good contact. The final ball wasn't bad, sailing about 330. It turns out that I, and a Canadian named Gabriel (who's obviously crazy for driving 16 hours from Canada to compete!), had tied. Both of us had a 3 ball shootout. He hit one 350, and all three of my shots went OB. I learned a good lesson. It's important to get the first one in the grid, even if it isn't that great a shot. It puts a bunch more pressure on your competition - as I found out! That put me into an elimination match with the event coordinator, Lance.

I learned another valuable lesson. Don't practice too much or you'll wear yourself out! I hit too many balls on the practice range prior to and during the event. I was exhausted during my elimination match. Probably a combination of the adrenaline wearing off from the first match which was 20 minutes before, and over practicing.



For my own benefit, I decided to list a few tips and issues with my mechanics that I need to work on before next months long drive competition.

1) Quality not Quantity. You can have a 155mph swing, but if you don't hit it on the sweet spot, it doesn't matter.

2) My hand position in my backswing was pretty low. I think coming down on the ball with a higher angle of attack will help with distance.

3) Keeping my head up will help prevent fighting against my front side.

4) Most of my power comes from hip turn. I had very poor hip turn, and need to work on my flexibility.

5) Listening to my ipod was a huge help. It helped to relax me, and keep me focused.

6) Warming up. All you need is just enough to get you warm. The rest of the time is about relaxing and having a good time. You should feel like you want to hit a bucket of balls at the end of the competition.


Here's a complete slideshow of the event...