Jason Zuback: Long Drive Champion

I happened to turn on my TV yesterday afternoon to see, if by any chance, there might be something worth watching at 2 in the afternoon. There rarely is; such is the state of cable TV today.

But, lo and behold, one of the sports channels was running the 2006 Long Drive Championship recorded last October in Mesquite, Nevada.

For the next hour, my jaw hung open as drive after drive was smacked ridiculous lengths.

Now, if you've ever seen these contests on TV, or perhaps live, you will know that the guys who can hit these inhuman drives are not 98 pound weaklings.

There are apparently 3 different classes for the men: Super Senior, Senior and Open.

Even the Super Seniors - 55 and older - were big guys, plenty of beef on their bones and forearms like Popeye. So what if they had grey hair.

The Open class was captured by Jason Zuback, a Canadian who has won the title five times. His winning drive was over 369 yards long!! The margin between his drive and the winning effort from Doug Miller in the Super Senior class was maybe 15 yards.

There were plenty of slow-motion replays and, I have to say, not too many of the swings were pretty. The women's champion, Phillis Meti from New Zealand, had the nicest looking swing and she could pop the ball over 330 yards off the tee!

She won 14 thousand bucks while Zuback took home 125 grand. Is there something wrong with that?

Most of the men looked like gorillas swinging at the ball but you couldn't fault their timing. The lower body always triggered the downswing and the amount of clubhead lag to impact was astonishing.

In other words, they were prime examples of the principles of physics in the golf swing.

Clubhead speeds of around 120 miles an hour and ball speeds up to 180, spin rates below 2500. All the right numbers needed for enormous distance.

Imagine standing on the tee of a 498 yard, par 5 with a nice, wide fairway stretching out before you. You smash the ball with one of the Long Drivers' 50 inch drivers and watch as your ball lands, some 10 seconds later, within a 9 iron of the green.

There is only one thing in life that could be better and you won't find it on this site.

What was equally intriguing as I watched was the fact that all the competitors were using a tee called the Zero Friction Tee.

I checked the company's website and saw that the tee is a three-pronged cup on which the ball sits. The company claims it adds distance by reducing resistance when the clubhead strikes the ball. Something about more clubhead on the ball rather than on the tee.

The company says you'll get another five yards over any other performance tee on the market. Any OTHER performance tee? Until I saw the program, I didn't know there were ANY "performance tees" out there!

Amazing what you can learn watching TV...

At the program's conclusion, it struck me that these big hitters are the drag racers of golf.

Power and speed is what their game is all about.