That?s Jamie Sadlowski, in case you?re wondering. The gentleman in question is a golfing superstar, yet he?s never played the PGA Tour, the Nationwide Tour or, for that matter, any professional golf tour anywhere else in the world.
In fact, in true Canadian sporting tradition, Sadlowski is a professional ice-hockey player who likes to swing a club in his spare time. Actually, he does better than that: the relatively diminutive five-foot ten-inch Sadlowski?who weighs a mite over 75 kilograms?has turned the Long Drive world on its head by destroying the muscle-bound brute-strength stereotype of the sport with his technically sound golf swing.
A picture doesn?t really do it justice?this columnist highly recommends that readers go online and see a video of this spry 25-year-old smashing the ball.
His personal best is an astonishing 445 yards and it?s powered by excellent mechanics and superhuman flexibility.
The quest for distance on the golf course took on feverish proportions after Tiger Woods? record-breaking 12-stroke victory at the 1997 Augusta Masters. Woods? towering drives blew away the competition (in that week, Woods averaged 323 yards off the tee, 25 yards longer than his nearest competitor) and eventually led Augusta National?that hallowed golf shrine?to incorporate design changes meant to add length to the golf course (to prevent a repeat massacre).
It also ushered in an age of athleticism, driving professional and amateur golfers alike to the gym. It also drove equipment companies to the drawing board. Hitting a big drive was desirable, egotistic, felt good, and everyone who played the game wanted to be King Kong.
Cut to 2010: the average driving distance on the US PGA Tour for 2010 was an astounding 287.3 yards. That would have led or been second on the individual rankings for driving distance every year from 1980 to 1996. And this year, after last weeks? Shriner?s Hospital for Children Open, Daniel Berger, leader in average driving distance on the PAG Tour, hits the ball an astounding 324 yards of better every time he tees it up.
And the story runs on similar lines for weekend golfers: 280 yards off the tee no longer has the aura it once had. There haven?t been any radical evolutions of the golf swing, and this added distance has to do with only one thing?better armament.
The primary weapon?the ?big stick??has come a long way in the past decade: in fact, the array of the drivers available today is practically unrecognisable. Incorporating an astonishing level of technology designed to make the clubs, on one hand, easier to hit the ball far with, and on the other, completely adaptable to different kind of golf swings.
Innovation with new drivers has been two pronged: while some have taken adjustability to a different level, others have incorporated lighter weight and better aerodynamics.
The multiple adjustability options on these new drivers can be confusing but have only one goal: tailoring how the club behaves according to an individual golf swing.
That can involve moving weights around in the clubhead to affect how it behaves at impact; changing the clubface angle to alter how it looks to the golfer at address (and which way the ball curves in the air); or simply changing the loft of the club to affect the ball flight. It?s not rocket science, though it may take a few buckets of balls at the range to figure out what suits your swing.
The clubhead weight bit is easier to understand, at least on paper. A lighter club translates into faster clubhead speed which, in turn, means more distance. Of course, hitting a very light club changes the feel of the swing and can take some time getting used to. Lightweight drivers today use super-light (yet strong) patented forged composite materials?one brand even brought out a driver which is built with the same stuff that is used by Lamborghini to manufacture parts of its supercars.
At the end of the day, golf is as much a game of power, as it is of finesse. It rarely rewards a golfer who persists in smashing the ball as hard as he can on every shot. You can?t really score well unless your irons, and even more significantly, your short game, are reasonably consistent.
That said, with modern courses routinely being designed to play more than 7,000 yards off the tips, there has never been more of a premium on hitting it long off the tee. And there?s really no reason to toil for extra distance with an outdated driver that doesn?t suit your swing.
As prodigious as Sadlowski?s abilities with the driver may be, he would get very far playing the tour as a professional. The new age drivers may not be a substitute for a golf lesson and hours of practice at the range, but they come pretty darn close. And no matter what you say, even the longest curling putt doesn?t come close to the sheer orgasmic pleasure of blitzing one off the tee, far out on the horizon.
A golfer, Meraj Shah also writes about the game